My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror - Chapter 283 (Patreon)

Everyone stared at Delph. He cocked his head to the side.

“What? Why are you all looking at me like that? I expected some excitement. Maybe a little cheering.”

“I told you this would happen,” Aven said, flopping down in a chair and leaning back to balance on its hind legs. “Seriously, what student wants to go to that hellscape?”

“Why, exactly, are we going to the frontlines?” Viv asked carefully. “And was this run past Goldsilk’s Dean? I find it hard to believe that–”

“All approved,” Delph said, raising a hand. “Sorry, kids. You got sold out. All of you. No getting out of this.”

“Even me?” Yui asked, but she sounded far more excited than worried.

I guess she’s happy for a chance to actually be able to do something without the Queen interfering. Can’t blame her.

“Even you,” Delph said. “Rather, the Queen didn’t figure out that I slipped that line into the contract I gave her. Anyone that gets us to give them our full attention for a few weeks is going to be either formidable or dead by the end of it.”

“With the schedule you seem to want to keep, dead seems more likely,” Dredd said, leaning on his staff with a grimace. “I’ll mention that, if you want, any of you can drop out of this at any time. Your failure will be reported to your respective Deans and you will be sent back to your school – but at least you won’t be dead.”

“You never answered Viv’s question,” Damien pointed out, leaning against the railing. At this point, he wasn’t even all that surprised. Delph was more than slightly insane, but he didn’t do things like this for no reason. That meant the best course of action was determining why Delph wanted to go to the frontlines. “I welcome the training, but what do the frontlines have to do with this?”

“The Corruption has been cropping up more along the frontlines than anywhere else,” Dredd reported. “Delph is under the belief that at least one of the Corruption Seeds is there. Second may be as well. Either way, by bringing the fight to them, we hope to do enough damage to stall whatever the Corruption is planning.”

“And your elite team of choice is a bunch of students?” Venus asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Is this a joke?”

“Nope. All the actually useful mages were already on the frontlines,” Delph replied. “And none of them want to work with me. Can’t imagine why. Regardless, I need a group that will actually listen to my orders.”

“And everyone here is involved?” Mark asked.

“With the addition of Quinlan, who has already been brought up to speed and is currently training,” Dredd said. “There will be several instructors involved in this effort. Delph and I will be taking the lead, and there will be several others involved as well. I am not at liberty to say who all of them are.”

“Well, I’m in,” Mark said. “Any chance to get stronger is one I’ll take – so long as this is more effective than my normal training. Will it be?”

“Trust me,” Delph said with a smirk. “Anyone that has my undivided attention is going to grow at a very significant pace.”

“Anyone?” Damien asked.

“Yes, Damien. Even you and Sylph. Or do you think you’ve already surpassed me?”

“I’m more debating on if I trust you,” Damien replied.

Delph grimaced. “The incident you’re thinking of is technically Havel’s fault, not mine.”

“What did he do?” Mark asked, glancing from Delph to Damien curiously.

“Never mind,” Damien said, shaking his head. “I was going to be training anyway, so this can’t hurt. I’m only staying if it’s genuinely helpful, though. And I’m not making any promises about whatever you’re planning with the trip to the frontlines, Delph. You aren’t getting that trust back so easily.”

Delph grunted. “Fair enough. I assume Sylph is in the same boat?”

“Always,” Sylph replied. “What kind of training are you planning on doing? This isn’t Year One anymore. We’ve all got our own styles of fighting and not everything is going to be useful for everyone.”

“We’ve taken that into account,” Dredd said. “That’s why there will be multiple teachers involved in this. Our goals for the next few weeks are to hone what you’re good at to the absolute max that we can achieve, not to make you well-rounded mages.”

“Seems reasonable enough,” Elania said. “And… not that I’m complaining, but isn’t there a bit of a power disparity here? We all just saw the fight between Sylph and Aven. I don’t know about everyone else, but that’s leagues beyond me. Why did you choose me?”

“Me as well,” Xil said. “I’ve barely just achieved my core evolution. Aren’t I just going to be dead weight?”

“You might not get to Damien or Sylph’s level in the time we’ve got, but Dredd and I have some ways to accelerate your advancement,” Delph said. “You were chosen because you all already know each other, and at least one of the instructing mages believes you have potential. That’s all we need.”

“So when do we start?” Gaves asked, finally rising from his spot beside Bella.

“Now,” Delph replied. “Unless anyone has anything they need to take care of today first.”

He paused for a moment, but nobody spoke up. The students who knew Delph more were all watching him with anything between mild suspicion and open distrust, while the others were mostly just curious.

“Fantastic,” Delph said. “To start this, you’re going to need to determine exactly how you want to fight. Some of you already know this, and others might have absolutely no idea. For example, Sylph relies on speed and close range to overwhelm her opponents. Aven, on the other hand, prefers to keep her foes at a range and cut them down before they can reach her. Whatever it may be, determining this will let us make sure you’re paired up with a teacher that can help you the most.”

“I’m close range,” Mark said promptly. “Physical combat is what interests me the most.”

“What if our powers lend themselves more toward support than fighting?” Viv asked. “I can hold my own fairly well, but my biggest talents are gathering information.”

“We’ve got someone that can help there too,” Delph said. “She’ll be in tomorrow. All of you, separate yourselves into groups of roughly matching styles.”

The students milled about, but most of them had already been fighting for long enough to have a very good understanding of where they preferred to be. Within a minute, several groups had formed.

Damien, Yui, and Elania were the fighters that preferred to be at a range. Beside them, and the largest group of mostly close ranged fighters, consisted of Sylph, Mark, Venus, Xil, and Gaves.

Bella and Viv stood off to the side, in what Delph had dubbed the support section. Cheese had joined Aven and the other instructors across from them, even though he was still a student as far as Damien was aware.

“Quinlan will also be a ranged fighter,” Delph said once they had finished arranging themselves. “Now, many of you are already aware of each other’s abilities. But, for those of you that aren’t, we should briefly go everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“You want us to disclose information like this to students of a rival school?” Venus asked. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

Delph’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about schools anymore. The Corruption is a threat to the Mortal Plane. Mages on the frontlines are struggling against the incredible numbers of them showing up, and the Corruption has swept through the kingdom, attacking villages and cities. Do you think it’s asking what school anyone is from before it kills them?”

Venus lowered her gaze. “No.”

“Then schools don’t matter anymore. What does matter is keeping yourself and your team alive, and the only way you can do that is if you perfectly understand what everyone can and cannot do. Start sharing.”

Damien couldn’t disagree with Delph, but he was pretty sure his biggest weakness was going to be if people found out exactly what Henry was. That wasn’t something he was about to share around more than he had to, so he elected to focus on his inability to utilize his full strength for a long period of time.

He avoided specifically mentioning the Void, instead saying he simply couldn’t handle Henry’s full strength for long periods of time. It wasn’t the best explanation, but it was more than enough for their purposes.

Since Damien already knew many of the other students fairly well, he’d already knew the general weaknesses they had. In his own team, Xil was behind and lacked training, Elania just didn’t have much Ether to work with and needed to train more, and Yui was sheltered and lacked real world experience.

Delph and Dredd had all the teams speak with each other, not just amongst themselves. Soon enough, everyone was thoroughly uncomfortable by having their biggest problems displayed and discussed.

“Now we’ve got a very general understanding of each other,” Delph said. “You’ll need to really fight together in order to see how those weaknesses come into play in a fight, but this is a starting point. Before we move to the actual exercise, there’s one more question I have to assess how good you are at reading a situation.”

He waited for a few moments as everyone stopped talking and turned toward him. Delph beckoned to the other teachers.

“Let’s say Dredd and I are both somehow incapacitated. Maybe we’re fighting a monster strong enough to keep our full attention. Hey, you might all get lucky and we could be dead. Either way, we’re out of the picture. Who among the people in this room is the strongest?”

Sylph immediately pointed at Damien, while everyone else glanced amongst each other. Xil slowly pointed at Damien as well, with Mark following shortly after. Elania pointed at Mark, and Graves and Bella both pointed at Yui – who turned to Sylph. Viv’s finger landed on Aven, and Venus just didn’t bother answering.

Cheese looked mildly offended at the entire thing and pointed at himself, and Aven just shook her head in annoyance.

Delph snorted. “Poor judgement. Well, we’ll see how your answers change soon enough.”

“I’m not sure that question is appropriate,” Sylph said, letting her hand drop. “In the middle of a battle, the strongest person isn’t the one we should be looking to. It should be the one that has the best understanding of how the fight is going. Realistically, our strongest fighter is going to be doing their job and fighting.”

“Good point,” Delph said, inclining his head. “This was just to see how many of you were able to spot danger when it’s standing beside you. Right then – time to get started for real. I’ll be taking all the close range combatants.”

Havel rippled on Delph’s shoulders, and the grizzled mage snapped his fingers, opening a grey portal to his side. Delph nodded to it.

“In you go.”

“Ranged fighters with me.” Dredd tapped his staff on the ground and a red portal bloomed before him. He stepped into it without waiting for anyone to respond.

“And support can stay here,” Cheese said, covering a yawn. “Your instructor should be here pretty soon. She’s just running late.”

Damien nodded to Sylph, and an unspoken conversation passed between them. Their guards would be up.

Everyone that was leaving piled into their portals, following after the teachers to wherever their Ether would take them.