The Sword and The Shadow

Dark Elf

Since that night, Krieghdon lived with Claudius. Due to the obvious difference in their races, they had to move to the mountains and live in isolation.

However, that didn't affect their life much. The place they moved to wasn't far away. And given that they had been more or less secluded the whole time, the move didn't greatly impact their life. Kreighdon, on the other hand, said they would be able to find good ingredients in the mountains. Based on that, Frenda suspected that Kreighdon could probably be as strong as a guard of the barbarian king.

Her guess was that he could be a high-order warrior.

Little did she know that the orc in front of her could be the strongest warrior in the whole world. Even the barbarian king Legg would be helpless before him.

Kreighdon didn't really care what the half-barbarian woman thought and paid attention to Claudius. He would always hunt some odd beast for him to eat. Even though the meats were hard as wood sometimes, Claudius felt himself grow visibly stronger. So, he didn't seem the slightest bit dissatisfied despite the bad taste.

Just like that, the orc, half-barbarian woman and pure-blood barbarian began their new life together.

……

Night fell and all was quiet in Second Magic Academy. While there wasn't a set curfew, most of the students had returned to their dorms. The dorms had been installed with a heat-regulating formation designed by Annelotte based on Glacial Domain.

While the effects weren't too apparent, it still felt cooling during a hot summer night. That was perhaps the only comfort enjoyed by this academy that First Magic Academy didn't share. But according to their agreement, Annelotte might have to hand over that innovation to Geoffrey by the end of the semester. Myr had notified her about this beforehand.

Even so, that didn't mean everyone had gone to sleep. The infirmary of the academy was still lit.

Eirinn wiped off the sweat on her face after she finished reciting her divine incantation. This student she was healing had been injured during a training session. Unlike Geoffrey, Annelotte wasn't afraid of letting the students to come to a little harm. So, spell accidents weren't uncommon in Second Magic Academy.

It went without saying that spells could be quite dangerous, so the students were already used to suffering minor injuries here and there. But since they were mostly from poor backgrounds, getting slightly hurt wasn't a huge concern for them.

However, that kind of curriculum put a lot on Eirinn's plate. Most of the other medics working with her had gone to rest. Only Eirinn and the injured student remained. He seemed to have been injured by a fireball spell this time around. His left arm was burning red and seemed rather painful.

"Alright, you'll recover if you rest well for another two days," Eirinn said with a smile.

"Thank you, Miss Eirinn." The student blushed and looked away, but he was rather thankful.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just doing my job."

"I shall take my leave now." Even though his body felt rather prickly from his wounds, he grit his teeth and endured it.

After the student left, he ran into Innilis. His expression changed at the sight of the pretty girl and he dashed away from the infirmary like he was trying to escape something.

"Are you hurt, Innie?" Eirinn didn't seem too anxious about it. Innilis would often come to visit her for no good reason, but she asked just in case.

"No, how could I?" Innilis shook her head proudly and pointed outside. "That fellow was the person I fought against today."

"So you were the one who hurt him?" Eirinn said with a start.

"That's right. I wasn't able to control the fireball too well so it was more powerful than expected," Innilis said nonchalantly.

"Oh? I didn't think the one hailed to have the highest potential wouldn't be able to control a simple fireball spell."

"Ummm… hehe…" She scratched her hair awkwardly. "Alright, I was intentionally a little heavy-handed."

"Why did you do that, Innie?"

"Hmph! I've heard of that fellow long ago and he's been trying to hit on you. So I struck harder to give him a warning."

"Is that so?" Eirinn blushed slightly and didn't think the student harbored those intentions.

It wasn't the first time something like that happened. The academy had started for more than two months and the beauty of Annelotte and Eirinn began to spread in the academy. Most people know the two as the twin beauties of the academy. Eirinn alone had encountered more than ten pursuers. Interestingly, most of them were students from First Magic Academy, much to the ire of both principals.

Geoffrey almost got into an argument with Annelotte over it. Annelotte complained that the students of First Magic Academy were all frivolous to the point they lusted after the priestess from another academy while Geoffrey blamed it on Eirinn for behaving inappropriately and not setting proper boundaries.

Hearing Eirinn slandered like that, Annelotte exploded on the spot. The usually cool-headed girl approached the prince and gave him a fierce slap in front of Larwin. Blood even flowed out of the corner of his lips.

Humiliated and angered, Geoffrey wanted to escalate the fight but he was stopped by Larwin. It wasn't even a joke. Geoffrey lost a leg in a fight with Kurdak alone. How could he hope to match up to her? Would he even be able to touch her?

The emperor also knew that Geoffrey was more at fault for his accusation. Thankfully, it was Annelotte who was there. If it had been Leguna, he might've just pierced Lighteater through Geoffrey's heart.

In the end, Geoffrey suffered a slap out of nowhere and Larwin and Alfreid even secretly advised him to make it up to Eirinn.

Even though it was a secret matter, somehow the matter was leaked all throughout. That only served to stoke the fires of enmity between the two academies. If the academies weren't located at opposite ends of the capital, there probably would be fights all day long.

Upon finding out about it, Leguna was fuming mad, but he chose to not pursue the matter since Larwin had stepped in to stop it. He merely asked Innilis and Annelotte to watch over Eirinn more. She was far too kind to understand those kinds of things and Leguna felt that Annelotte and Innilis were more reliable when it came to such matters.

Innilis, being asked to help, took this matter extremely seriously. She even formed her own unit with other girls to punish those fools that harbored untoward intentions towards Eirinn.

Interestingly, Sasha ended up becoming vice president of that unit, despite how much she stuttered before the other members. Sometimes it seemed like she was reading them a public apology.

"It is so!" Innilis said angrily, "You don't know this, but that fellow is gross! He often camps in the bushes outside your accommodation. You should see the perverted look on his face! We managed to find proof of that through our investigation!"

"This…" Eirinn flushed even redder. While she was happy that she was now beautiful, she didn't think it would come with its fair share of troubles as well.

What should she do? She didn't want anybody to get hurt for her sake. She was even considering whether she should get Annelotte to make her a little uglier.

"You have to be careful too! We, the Eirinn's Guard, can't keep you safe from them at all times. Even though you might not want to believe in the badness of others, you still have to be careful," Innilis said like an adult would lecture a child.

The sound of Eirinn's Guard put an awkward expression on her face.

Innilis didn't notice the look on her face at all. She gave it some thought and said, "Just think of it as saving those fellows. Think about it, Sis, if anyone does you wrong and Big Bro Leguna finds out, they'll die a horrible death. So, protecting yourself from them is akin to saving them!"

"Is that so…" Eirinn struggled to accept the twisted logic.

"Apologies for the interruption." At that moment, a man suddenly appeared at the entrance. He looked handsome to the point of being a little androgynous and had a tall and slender figure. More importantly, his skin was dark and he had long ears! His hair color was almost an identical shade of silver with Eirinn's!