Return of the Runebound Professor

Sure enough, a few minutes after passing through a scene straight from a wylf horror movie, they ran into yet even more wylfs. Noah managed to pick them up with his tremorsense before they got too close and held his hand up to stop everyone.

The monsters were lurking in the trees ahead, and based on the limited information his Imbuements could give him, they were fairly large. Not quite the size of the one Lee was still dragging around, but still considerably bigger than the other wylfs.

“Over there,” Noah said, nodding to the trees. Lee had already sniffed them out before he finished speaking and was already in a fighting stance – though she’d yet to release her grip on the unconscious monster.

“How many?” Moxie asked.

“Four. They’re larger than the other wylfs we’ve fought.” The forms of the monsters in Noah’s mind shifted as they started to approach. “I think they’ve heard us talking. Get ready.”

Moxie waved a hand and vines rose up from the ground around her. Howls rose up into the forest as the monsters accelerated. The first of them burst from the trees, moving fast enough that its red eyes seemed to leave a trail through the air behind it.

With a swift stomp, Noah sent a wave of energy into the ground. It ruptured, spikes of jagged earth ripping up in a path before him. They slammed into the wolf with a loud screech and it threw itself to the side, hopping as it hit the ground.

For a moment, its movement slowed enough for Noah to get a good look at it. It definitely resembled a wylf, but its body was covered in dark green scale rather than fur. Two fangs jutted out of the front of its mouth, and its tail was short and stubby. The stone spikes had shattered some of the armor on its chest, but hadn’t left a serious wound. It let out a howl and sprinted at Noah again.

Three more of the armored wylfes burst out from the trees in a charge. Moxie’s vines whipped out for the one nearest to her. It dodged out of the way and bit down on the vine with a snarl – a fatal mistake.

The vine cracked like a whip and launched the monster into the air. Its howl faded into the distance as it tumbled head over heel, flying past the trees and vanishing from sight. Lee bounded forward, a wylf in one hand and her axe in the other, and brought both weapons crashing down on the nearest monster’s head.

Noah didn’t have time to consider the ethical issues of killing one monster with the body of another. The wylf he’d been fighting closed the distance between them and lunged, baring a mouth of jagged fangs as it leapt to rip out his throat.

He dropped to the ground, just barely managing to avoid the monster’s deadly claws as they passed overhead.

No matter how much they vaguely resemble wolves, these aren’t wolves. They’re monsters, and they’re actively trying to kill us. I don’t think they’ve got any mental capacity anyway – they’re being controlled by the Great Monster.

Noah rose back up, electricity crackling across his fingertips as he gathered energy from Natural Disaster. The armored wylf hit the ground and spun to face him, letting out a roar as it lunged once more. Particles of sand gathered around its body – not nearly as many as the mutated wylf had commanded, but still enough to form spikes in the air.

He caught a glimpse of a droplet of poison on the tip of one of the monster’s fangs a moment before he released the gathering power. A violent drill of electricity and wind howled from his hands in a miniature, targeted storm.

It ripped across the ground and struck the wylf straight in its open mouth. The monster barely had a chance to let out a surprised roar before the magic ripped through it apart from within.

Hopping to the side, Noah let the dead monster ragdoll to a stop before him. Energy from its soul started to gather above it, and he sliced through it with Sunder. Of the Runes that appeared, only two weren’t Monster Runes. Both of them were at Rank 2

Striking Sand

Weeping Poison

Both of the Runes were at Rank 2 and, though they didn’t feel perfect, they didn’t feel bad either. Noah harvested the two of them and placed them in his grimoire – with any luck, they’d still be around in a day.

He could have sworn that the grimore was steadily getting nicer, but the changes were gradual enough that it was hard to put a finger on how much had changed. Still, Noah was quite certain that its leather hadn’t felt nearly as velvety as it did now when he’d first fed it.

“You better not be eating all my damn Runes,” Noah growled. “You’ve had enough food, haven’t you? I need some for myself.”

The grimoire just closed itself. For a moment, its eye stared up at Noah. Then it closed, sinking back into the cover and returning to nothing more than a pattern. Heaving a sigh, Noah slung the large book back over his shoulder.

Moxie and Lee had finished the other monsters off already. Lee was already staring off into the distance, likely at another monster that was out of the range of Noah’s Imbuements. Moxie, on the other hand, looked distracted.

“What are you thinking about?” Noah asked.

“Our first lesson after we get back. I’m not sure what to cover.”

“I thought we were going to focus on killing the Great Monster and then figure that out afterward.”

Moxie grimaced. “Yeah, I know. But we haven’t found the Great Monster yet, and these smaller enemies aren’t really much of a challenge. It’s hard not to think about other things.”

“Fair enough. I know the feeling all too well,” Noah admitted. “Is there something in particular they need to learn, or is it pretty much the same as last year where we can do whatever we want?”

“Arbitage doesn’t have set requirements for any specific learnings. It’s a research institute focused on protecting noble students and learning more about Runes, not making sure the students can turn into researchers themselves,” Moxie said with a shake of her head. “All we have to do is make sure that they can do well on the exams.”

“I don’t suppose we know what those are yet?”

“No, the information on them is handed out at the start of the year. We’ll probably find out when we get back to Arbitage. Since the students are starting their third year, I’d assume there will start to be some exams more focused on their actual Runes rather than combat abilities, though there will definitely be fighting exams as well.”

“That shouldn’t be an issue. Isabel, Todd, and Emily are all well ahead of the curve as they’re already Rank 2,” Noah said with a shrug. “Although we’ll need to make sure none of their Runes are technically stolen. I’d rather not deal with the fallout of that.”

Moxie rolled her eyes. “That would be for the best, but I agree. It’ll depend on the exact exam, of course – but my focus is more on actually teaching them, not passing the exams.”

That’s a good metric. I wasn’t really thinking about it, but exams are sometimes more for the school to claim they’re teaching successfully than they are to actually help students. Not so different from Earth at all.

“You can teach basic lessons on Formations pretty soon,” Moxie said, gesturing to Noah. “And Lee’s physical training is always useful. But I’m trying to figure out what I should focus on. We could keep doing sparring and general lessons, but it’s getting to the point where they need to get more specialized.”

“We could always ask them,” Noah offered. “They’re the ones learning, after all. If we want to start more specific with what they’re focusing on, we might as well get some input from the people learning.”

Moxie gave him a slow nod. “That would be best, but it does mean I still don’t know what to do yet. I didn’t plan for having this much freedom with what I could do, and now I have no idea what to do with it.”

“Maybe just keep an eye out for interesting things that happen? You’ve still got far more fighting experience than any of the kids, so no matter what they want to focus on, we’ll have a fair amount of time to do more general fighting lessons before you have to home in on anything.”

“What do you think, Lee?” Moxie asked, raising her voice slightly so it would carry over.

Lee glanced back at them. The moment her attention was slightly split, the mutated wylf twitched and blurred into motion, launching itself into the forest with a terrified yowl. Its paws pounded against the dirt as it disappeared into the trees in a blur.

“Aw,” Lee said, her lips turning down into a pout. “Oh well. I think we can still teach a lot of fighting stuff, but we could also spend some time actually having them hunt monsters and gathering Runes. Why stop at Rank 2? We could focus on helping them reach Rank 3.”

Huh. She’s not going to chase after it? Lee could definitely catch the wylf if she wanted to. Maybe she decided not to bully it so much.

“That… would actually be pretty funny,” Moxie said with a laugh. “Most students graduate at Rank 2. If the three of them hit Rank 3 before they’re even in their final year, it would create quite the stir. Noah, you’d definitely better rank up and report it to the school before that, then. It’ll be embarrassing to have students of a higher rank than you are.”

Noah scrunched his nose in annoyance. “Yeah, yeah. You’re saying that like it’s meant to be easy to reach Rank 4. I still need to fix up my Rank 3 Rune.”

“Must suck.” Moxie flashed him a grin, then gave Lee an appreciative nod. “And I like that strategy, Lee. I think I’ll focus on trying to figure out what monsters have runes that can help each of the students. We can put together a plan of how to get them to Rank 3 as efficiently as possible.”

“Just after I fix up their Rank 2 Runes,” Noah said. “That works. You can focus on that and I’ll look into putting together a lesson plan on music – I don’t think I really understand Formations enough to teach it yet, but teaching is the best way to learn.”

“And I’ll punch them motivationally,” Lee said, holding a fist up. “I’m good at that.”

Lee lowered her hand and paused, sniffing the air. “I’m going to go catch that wylf again. It stopped running.”

A faint shiver ran down Noah’s spine.

She let it run because she had such a good grasp of its smell that it can’t escape her, and she just didn’t want to stop talking to us for long enough to catch it yet. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how terrifying Lee’s nose is.

“Oh, hold on.” Lee’s brow furrowed, but the confusion quickly gave way to a grin. “It’s coming back!”

“It is?” Noah tried to keep the disbelief from his voice.

Did she give it Stockholm syndrome?

A thud echoed through the forest. Noah froze, just in time to hear what sounded like hundreds of loud, echoing cracks. A dull roar was making its way through the trees, mowing through them with reckless abandon – and heading directly in their direction.

“Lee?” Noah asked carefully, drawing on Natural Disaster and turning to face the source of the approaching noise. “Are you sure it’s your wylf coming?”

“Yeah, I smell it.” Lee took a few steps back from the trees and raised her axe. Moxie placed her hand on a tree, taking control of it and scattering seeds across the ground at her feet.

A moment later, Lee’s wylf burst free from the tree line, skidding to a stop before her. Its eyes were wide, burning with hatred – and possibly fear.

“See?” Lee said. “It’s back!”

The trees just behind the wylf shattered. The head of a huge snake pushed through them, each of its eyes as large as Noah’s entire body. It was covered with glimmering green scales, strikingly similar to the ones on the armored wylves. Streams of sand slithered across its body like bands. A blood-red tongue flicked out, tasting the air as it let out a threatening hiss, rising up to cast a shadow over all of them.

“I think your wylf came back with reinforcements.” Noah’s Runes hummed, but he hardly needed them to. It didn’t look very much like the wylves, but there was no doubt in his mind.

“Oh, huh. Yeah, that might be the Great Monster,” Lee mused. “Do you think it’s friendly?”

The snake roared. Noah had never heard a snake roar before – he hadn’t thought it was possible. But, when something was as big as a building, even a loud hiss counted as a roar.

“No,” Noah replied. “I don’t.”

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