Zephyr seems more excited than usual with how much energy he is walking with to come over here. His enormous sword on his back looks like he is prepared to jump straight into battle. Zephyr and Ignis nod at each other when they come within close range. I wonder what all of this is about.
"Are you ready for this?" Zephyr asks Ignis, grinning as usual.
"I am as prepared as I can be," Ignis replies while giving a slight smile back.
Both of them look like they are on the opposite side of the spectrum. Zephyr has a bit of a big personality, while Ignis is more laid back.
"Nico, please follow us to the Revolutionary Room," Ignis says as he starts walking. His comment throws me off because I don't know if anybody else knows how to get there besides me and Justus.
"How are you able to find it if you don't have dark magic?" I ask, curious because I believed only humans who can harness dark magic can find it.
"Justus did some more research and found a way by manipulating some magical device to have the room directly linked to studying the patterns of our unique mana flow. This allows only people who are supposed to find the room to find it," Ignis replies.
I have to give Justus more credit. He is certainly very smart.
"Unless the person trying to break in is that strong, much stronger than I am, and knows exactly where it is. That's the only way it could be found," Ignis says as we walk to the main building until we find the stairs to the basement.
Then we walk down the stairs.
"Will any of the Keepers suspect us if they catch us going to the basement often?" I ask cautiously to ensure our actions are safe.
"Justus already thought ahead with that. I got permission from the Keeper Principal to train you two personally to win the Glozaria Keeper Cup. So anytime any other Keepers see you with me, they will assume we are doing private training."
"Even though they are all Eradicators, they are all extremely prideful, and they want to win the Keeper Cup no matter what. Therefore, they want you to get as strong as you can," Ignis says before he waves his wand and whispers short incantations to disable the magic traps.
"They are still confident enough, even if you get a lot stronger, that they could take you down and restrain you. The one thing they don't know about is that you have a lot of support backing you up," Ignis says as the magical doors slide open to reveal the room.
"What support-" I say, but then go silent.
I can't finish my sentence because of everything I am seeing. The once barren Revolutionary Room is now chock-full of activity. Students are practicing magic against target dummies, others are reading books in the corner, and some are just chatting with each other.
There are at least a good fifty people in this large room from a quick estimated headcount. My other friends Ivy, Neve, Matteo, and Leena are waving at me from one corner. I wave back.
"How did you get all these people here?" I ask Ignis.
"It was not too hard to convince people I wanted to change the Keeper's philosophy. Some of them know the full truth, while others know the Keepers have an ulterior motive. Explaining the entire real lore of the country, even coming from me, would not sound super convincing."
"I only told the people I know who would be open-minded about it. The main thing is that everyone here is super trustworthy and believes the control the Keepers have over the academy and country is too much. They don't want the light mages to rule over everyone."
"They are here to help us overthrow the Keeper Principal," he says proudly as we watch several students use their elemental long-range magic to shoot at the targets.
Many people here don't look super skilled.
Around a quarter of the HRC members are noble students, while the rest are not nobles. This makes sense because noble students would be more likely to side with the current regime than to try changing it.
"Will this be enough?" I ask both Ignis and Zephyr. They both end up shrugging at me.
Zephyr says, "If we get more, great; if not, we will have to make do with what we have. Something is better than nothing."
"That's true," I reply in response. I should try to look at the brighter side of things. My brain is still in shock from processing the fact we have a legitimate secret rebellion group to overthrow the Keepers or weaken them enough until the HLH can finish them. If anything, we will give it our all.
"Everyone! Please stop what you are doing and gather around us," Ignis shouts out, his voice echoing against the walls of the room.
The students practicing long-range magic stop. The students reading the books place them down on the tables and come over to us. Suddenly, the fifty students are standing in front of me. Ignis gestures to me to say something. I shoot him a look that says I don't want to do this at all. He just looks at me and smiles.
I will get back at him, I swear.
"Hello Everyone! My name is Nico Lotus. I am helping my close friend Ignis overthrow the current Keeper regime and give more freedom to all of us students! What we do determines the survival of all non-light mages. We need to end this corruption!" I tell everyone as I put all my social energy into my one speech while I raise my wand.
I surprisingly get a lot of clapping and cheering. From the expressions on people's faces, I can tell which ones know the full truth and the ones that don't or don't want to accept it.
I seriously am going to get Ignis back for this.
Whatever people think, we have to get this done. We have to exterminate the Eradicators no matter what. I just hope we don't lose any students in the process because of this.
I hope we will be fine.