A somber man walked into the office of a nearby building and sat down.
His palm washed over his face with an exasperated sigh escaping his mouth.
Minutes later as he stared himself into a wishful oblivion of what had just happened, the door opened.
Another man, but older walked into the office and sat in front of him, a table parting both of them.
“It must not feel good right?”
“What? Lying to a bunch of kids…” The officer raised his head to look the man in the eyes. “No, it did not feel good one bit.”
One thing he and the man had in common was the same uniform they wore. It was more like a military uniform but was white in colour, black stripes running from the shoulder to the legs.
The man had a slightly grim expression on his face and slapped his tongue bitterly inside his mouth.
“I don’t know what to say… as you know. In this world, we are the bottom of the food chain, we are meant to grovel at the mercy of the instructors and carry out whatever orders are given to us. That is the reality of our situation.”
The guy bit his lip. He opened his mouth after a fresh seconds of silence:
“It’s not even that…” He looked up to the man again, “Sir Fergo… something is fishy. I can smell it. I don’t know why we were asked to lie to the kids or why they suddenly disappear but I can smell that something is wrong.”
“And it will do us hundred times good to pay no attention to it. Face your work Oland.”
The guy looked down and bit his lips once more.
“Damn!” He smacked his hand on the table.
Fergo watched him bitterly and shook his head. He stood up a couple of seconds later, bidded farewell and left the office.
Leaving the young officer to drown in the regret of ever deciding to accept a job in the academy.
There were several ranks of profession in the academy. The lowest rank: Workers, these ones are responsible for menial jobs such as cleaning.
‘Officers’ these are set of low rank drifters that work with the protectors to preserve the security of the school, after them existed the Junior Instructors, Senior instructors, Heads of department, administratives, vice principal and principal.
Fergo had at least wished to become a junior instructor but because of his low class talent and insufficient rifts experience, he was unfit for the job.
Hence he had to settle for what he could get. To take care of his sickly mother and educate his sister in a common school he had to be an officer.
So far the job has been rewarding, except from times when they get bullied by junior instructors.
Working with the protectors was a privilege and if Oland would put it to word, he’d say the junior instructors are just jealous of such privilege.
After all, a protector is an amazing rank of prestige, to live one’s life and family in order to protect the border of the continent is the highest level of service a man can give.
And service at such level is respected and appreciated by all.
Oland had been struggling to survive in an environment like this, especially when the senior instructors would dump loads of shitty errands like this one on him.
He should have never been the one to pass this message Oland knows.
Whatever it was the academy was planning, it was not of general knowledge and so there’s no way he’d be asked to do it.
Usually when it’s considered to be related to students, the academy keeps it confidentially between instructors.
Oland was sure this was an act of disobedience.
Thinking about it, a strange fire began to burn in his chest.
He wanted to investigate the matter, see what it was about and report it to the authorities. Even if it’s to spite the instructor that had put him up to it.
Oland felt sorry for the entrants but what’s done is done.
‘Wherever you all are. I hope you survive…’
—
Under the crimson sky, the scorched earth was littered with the mangled corpses.
Massive, beastly bodies with matted fur and savage claws lay slashed open, their entrails spilling out onto the muddy ground.
Among them were the shattered shells of colossal crabs, their legs twisted at unnatural angles and their shattered pincers still dripping with viscous fluids.
Northern’s eyes fluttered open to a landscape of unimaginable carnage.
He found himself surrounded by the gruesome remnants of a brutal war between two monstrous species.
The air was choked with the metallic tang of blood and the sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh.
Rivulets of dark, coagulated blood snaked through the turf, soaking the trampled grass.
Severed limbs and gnarled, severed heads were strewn about like grotesque debris.
A heavy, oppressive silence engulfed the ravaged land. Flies swarmed over wounds, their droning wings amplifying the eerie stillness.
Northern’s own shocked breaths sounded deafening amidst the deathly quiet.
He gazed around, horrified and transfixed by the nightmarish vista. The sheer brutality on display was beyond comprehension.
What primal hatreds, he wondered, could have fueled such ruthless carnage? How many lives had been mercilessly extinguished on this cursed plot of land?
Stumbling to his feet, Northern cast his eyes over the battlefield graveyard. He shuddered at the harrowing sight…
A voice interrupted him… a different kind of voice, one he hard once heard.
<You have entered a rift>
Northern frowned at the runes that appeared as rhe voice delivered its message.
“A rift?”
The officer had told them they had two weeks to prepare for a rift and all of a sudden they were transported into one?
‘This is nonsense’
Why bother lying… if they were going to send them into a rift why not just send them?
Was it to avoid student from protesting…?
But lying for such reasons seemed childish, nonsensical to Northern. Plus that teleportation circle that he saw…
The light, he was sure it was the same kind of light that teleported him into the airship.
If so was the former academy principal a part of this?
That line of thought seemed plausible to Northern. What had just happened bothered him a lot but there was something else before him.
He is in a rift.
With no solid knowledge… no training or rift education whatsoever.
No weapon.
He was unaware of the tier of rift he had found himself in!
And he has to survive somehow.
Faced with such reality… Northern’s bones trembled.