"Magus! He's a Magus!"
The youths next to Rayliegh were frightened by this scene and stepped back in a hurry, their faces pale with shock. The easy victory they'd expected had turned into something else entirely. But Ralth would never let them go. His anger had found a target, and now it demanded to be satisfied.
"You guys should die too!" Ralth
He had a cold face, and rays of faint blue light flew out from his fingertips and landed accurately on the minions. Each missile found its mark with uncanny precision guided by Ralth's rage.
These minions were not as strong as Rayleigh, so they naturally could not avoid the missiles Ralth threw their way. They fell to the ground one by one, groaning. Some clutched their legs, others their arms, all with expressions of shock and pain.
Fortunately, Ralth was not blinded by anger, and the missiles were aimed at the legs of the minions. He had enough control to avoid vital areas, enough sense to know that death of any magus apprentices would bring consequences he couldn't handle.
As long as no one dies, everything would be fine. Or so he told himself as he advanced on them, another spell forming at his fingertips.
Ralth walked forward slowly, the blue light at his fingertips flickering like a candle flame in a draft. His steps were measured and deliberate, each one bringing him closer to the fallen gang leader.
At this moment, Ralth was like a judge of hell walking on earth, about to judge the sins of the world with the blue missile. The magical light cast strange shadows on his face, making him look older, harder, almost inhuman.
One step, two steps, three steps.
Finally, Rayleigh, who was flying backwards, stopped pretending to be dead and crawled to the other end of the airship. His fear gave him strength, sending him scrabbling across the floor like a wounded crab.
"Magus! Master Magus! Someone wants to kill me! Someo..."
Before he could finish his words, a magic missile landed between his legs. The blue light flashed, and then came the impact, precise and terrible.
In an instant, the air seemed to be filled with the sound of breaking eggs. Rayleigh's scream rose to a pitch that no man's voice should reach then it cut off abruptly.
Under such intense pain, Rayleigh's eyes rolled back and he fainted instantly. His body went limp, collapsing into a pathetic heap on the polished floor.
But Ralth still felt a little unsatisfied. The nauseous feeling as if he had eaten a fly lingered in his heart. Something dark and ugly that had been growing inside him since his transmigration had broken free, and it demanded more violence.
So he quickly walked up to him and stepped hard on Rayleigh's face with his shoes. The sound was wet and crunching like stepping on overripe fruit.
"You fool! you damned fool! You dared to banged on my door, try to rob my roommate, and you tried to ron me as well! You must want to die! Really, Really want to die!"
Each word was punctuated with another stomp, grinding Rayleigh's face into the floor. Blood smeared across the wooden boards, bright red against the dark polish.
"Ralth!"
Ralth turned around and saw Charlotte staring at him blankly. She stood in the doorway of their room, her face pale with shock. Her hand was pressed against her mouth, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"Oh, Charlotte, are you okay?"
Ralth greeted her naturally, as if they had just met for breakfast. Then he rubbed the blood from the soles of his shoes on Rayleigh's body, casual as a man wiping mud from his boots.
"You did all this?"
Charlotte looked at everything in front of her. The evil Rayleigh was actually knocked down, his fearsome gang scattered like leaves in the wind. Blood stained the floor, and groans filled the air.
All this was done by Ralth, who had been with her these days. The quiet boy who carefully practiced writing magical symbols and asked thoughtful questions about the texts they studied.
A sense of absurdity came over Charlotte, making her feel like she was in a dream. Nothing made sense anymore. The world had turned upside down in the span of a few minutes.
When did he construct his Mana Reflux? The connection to the Sea of Souls was just the first step—actual spellcasting required a completed magical circuit to form the Mana Reflux, something that took most apprentices months of hard work to achieve.
The magus who came to inspect the airship arrived late. Heavy footsteps approached from the far end of the hallway, accompanied by the swish of robes against the floor. At the same time, the nobles in the observation cabin were attracted by the screams of the Snake Gang and came out to watch the fun.
"Oh my god, that youth actually defeated Rayleigh."
"Rayleigh is a knight's squire, and he is a powerful figure even among us!"
"This youth has magic items? But even if he has magic items, they can't be used without magic stones."
"Has he established the Mana Reflux and become an actual Magus apprentice?"
"How is this possible! How can a mere peasant be so fast?!"
The nobles' whispers reached Ralth's ears, a chorus of confusion and dismay. They huddled together at a safe distance, unwilling to miss the spectacle but afraid to get too close. Putting aside the disparagement and shock, the magic items driven by magic stones they had mentioned instantly caught Ralth's attention.
Magic items? Ralth secretly made a note in his heart. This was new information, something not mentioned in any of the texts Charlotte had shown him. Items that could channel magic without the wielder having to cast spells themselves? This information might affect the safety of his entrance examination, so he must treat it with caution.
Not long after, a magus appeared from the other end of the airship and arrived at the scene belatedly. The apprentices parted before her like water around a stone, pressing themselves against the walls to give her as much space as possible.
It was a female magus, who looked to be in her thirties. Unlike the nobles' fine clothes or the common apprentices' simple garments, she wore robes of deep purple embroidered with silver symbols that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. Her hair was bound in a tight knot at the nape of her neck, not a single strand out of place.
She looked very ordinary for the most part with a good looking but forgettable face and she had no physical mutations with a mostly normal look with the exception being that there was a mouth full of fangs growing on the palms of both hands. The mouths occasionally whispered to each other, sharing secrets that no human ear could hear. Some said the mouths were familiars that had bonded with her during a ritual; others claimed they were the price she paid for certain forbidden knowledge.
After checking them out with a dispassionate eye, the magus threw a few people to the ground with a casual wave of her hand and walked straight to Ralth. The injured men slid across the floor as if pulled by invisible ropes, forming a neat pile off to one side.
"I'm the Magus supervising the safety of apprentices, you may call me Julianne, do you know who did this?"
Her voice was surprisingly pleasant, like honey dripping from a spoon. It contrasted sharply with the grim scene before her and the monstrous mouths that grinned from her palms.
Charlotte, who was standing by, saw this and immediately came to Ralth's defense:
"Master Magus, these people wanted to force their way into the room, so..."
But she was interrupted by Ralth before she could finish her words. He placed a gentle hand on her arm, silencing her with a small shake of his head.
"Master Magus, I don't know who could have possibly done this! I heard their screams of terror and rushed to assist them but they were lying here when I first got here!"
Ralth looked at Julianne and spoke excitedly, as if these people's injuries really had nothing to do with him. His face was a mask of innocence, his voice steady and clear despite the theatrics.
Julianne took a deep look, her eyes boring into Ralth's as if searching for something. Then, surprisingly, a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. The mouths on her palms smiled too, tiny tongues flicking out to taste the air.
"Very good, it seems a ghost must has dealt with these bastards for me. But it was a bit heavy-handed, I'm afraid they'll be punished if they got caught. Luckily, you can't punish a ghost."
After saying that, Julianne patted Ralth on the shoulder and used levitation to control the people on the ground to leave the scene. The injured men floated behind her like grotesque balloons as she walked away, their groans fading as they disappeared around a corner.
Charlotte was watching all this in amazement,
"Ralth, how could you... what if she had killed us?"
Charlotte clutched her chest; she could feel her heart pounding like a drum against her ribs. Cold sweat broke out across her forehead, and her legs felt weak.
It was a bold move to deceive a magus, and Ralth did it so brazenly and so clumsily. The lie was so obvious, so transparent—any child could have seen through it. There was blood on his shoes, for heaven's sake!
But why would the magus believe it? Or pretend to believe it? Nothing made sense anymore.
Charlotte's mind was in a mess for a while, until Ralth pulled her into the room and she came back to her senses. The door closed behind them with a click that seemed unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet.
"Ralth, what happened just now?"
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, as if she feared the magus might still be listening. Perhaps she was—who knew what powers the magi possessed?
Ralth sat on the stool, a gleam of wisdom in his eyes. He seemed different now, older somehow. More dangerous. The boy who had slept in the other bed for two weeks seemed like a stranger to her now.
"Charlotte, this is the magus's rule of the game. On this airship, the magus's rules are an insurmountable red line for us, but for magi, they might as well be rules made by a few people at dinner."
He spoke softly but with a certainty that Charlotte had never heard from him before. As if he had understood something fundamental about the world that had eluded her all these years.
"Although I just broke the rules, Magus Julianne who came to check it out thought I did a good job. She didn't want to punish me. That's why she asked that question."
Charlotte murmured, "Do you know who did all this? There's no way she couldn't tell who did it, not when it was so obvious but since the rules mean nothing to her at all, why should she ask that?"
The question lingered in the air between them as Charlotte realized the complex and dangerous world of magi was darker than she had ever imagined. A world where truth bent to power, and justice was whatever the strong decided it was.
Ralth smiled, a flash of self-mockery crossing his face. His fingers traced patterns on the table, mimicking the magical symbols they had been studying together.
"Because there are more than one magi on this airship, she needed a reason to explain to the other magi. No matter how ridiculous and absurd the reason given is."
He looked up, meeting Charlotte's eyes with a gaze that seemed to contain all the sadness of the world.
"For a magus, an apprentice, especially a seriously injured apprentice is nothing more than a nuisance that deserves nothing more than a ridiculous reason to be put out of the mind."
Charlotte sat down heavily on her bed, trying to process everything she had seen and heard.
"So what happens now?" she asked finally.
Ralth shrugged, but his eyes were alert and calculating. "Now we prepare for the exam. And we watch our backs. Rayleigh won't forget this, and neither will the magus."
Outside their room, the airship continued its steady journey through the clouds, carrying them all towards life and death.