Chapter 73: Annoyed Rita

Sergeant Rita led Karl to the morning training, where there was a new face waiting for them. Alice, the mage who had been in the room for Karl's treatments yesterday, was sitting in a chair by the door and waved happily as Karl walked in. Rita frowned as she realized who the woman was, then turned away as if by ignoring her, the woman would go away. But Alice didn't make any move to get up; she just sat by the door as Karl took his position and called Hawk out. "Goddess, what did you do to Hawk? He looks like he wants to eat us." One of the mages gasped. "It's not a big deal. A treatment just made him grow to a giant size. He's only a little stronger than he was." Karl replied. While that was reassuring, the fact that there was a giant monster in the sky above them was enough to intimidate all the students, at least a little bit. It was an instinctive reaction to a large flying predator that could carry away a full-grown person. It wasn't likely; his actual body was only a little over a meter long, but with the wide wings and long tail feathers, he looked much more imposing in flight. Their first few spells were a bit hesitant, but once they realized that Hawk was blocking them the same as always, they began to get back into the swing of things and worked to overcome his increased number of attacks, which were traveling at a higher speed today than they remembered. The mental improvements that both Karl and Hawk had gained were helping with both the targeting speed and the ability to rapidly form and send the Rend attacks at the target. Karl heard Rita's voice as she talked to Alice and split a bit of his attention from the attacks. "Don't you think this is a bit too easy? I mean, they're not even attacking the defenders, just the targets near them." Alice was asking. "It is the safest way. We can't afford the sort of fatal incident that happened a few years ago. Even if you put a barrier on them, there is still too much of a risk." Rita replied. "They're not going to break my barrier, and it would be better for the two of them if they had to avoid and block attacks instead of this bodyguard scenario where the attackers are only concerned with the target behind them," Alice replied. "Are you the tutor, or am I?" Rita was mad now, and Karl was tempted to continue listening as they lowered their voices to argue, but that would take too much of his attention from the task at hand. The class paused at the half-hour mark for their usual five-minute breather, and Karl grabbed a water bottle for himself and Hawk, squeezing it to spray water into the open mouth of the oversized bird since he couldn't easily drink out of a bowl without making a mess. "Alright, everyone, back at it. But we are going to change things up a bit this time. Your skills are improving, so you will be aiming at moving targets. That means not only will you have to hit a moving target, but Karl and Hawk will have to defend moving targets." The professor in charge of the class instructed us. Karl couldn't tell if that meant that Rita or Alice had won their argument, but it would make the class more interesting. It was also going to be a real challenge for some of the students who had struggled with their aim at the start of the year. They were better at hitting stationary targets, but Karl would have to make sure that he didn't get himself hit. He had the Academy's training armor, a long coat and helmet, but that was only a limited level of protection that should keep him from being seriously injured if he took a direct strike from one of these spells. But then, they were mostly on the low side of Awakened, and his body was getting much stronger, so perhaps they wouldn't be too damaging through the coat. When he hit Tank with full-force spells, they barely bruised him, but he was two ranks above Karl and Hawk. The mages in the class were using limited power to extend their stamina, a quarter or less of their ability. That seemed safe enough. The spells began to fly toward the targets, which were now much closer to the ground, and Karl moved to make interception easier. His presence between the mages and the moving targets frustrated many of the students, as even if Karl didn't successfully intercept the spells, they couldn't hit the target with him in the way. But now that they were coming toward him instead of over his head, the attacks were easier to target and block. The vertical axis was nearly removed as a factor, and attacking straight forward would hit many more spells if he used a wide arc or the net technique of overlapping Rend attacks. But that also put the mages in the line of fire, so he had to be careful about his range so that the abilities dissipated before they reached the attackers. They weren't wearing armor, and asking the teacher to constantly intercept his counterattacks would probably put the older mage in a bad mood. "Now, that's much better. See how much more combat-effective this is?" Alice was asking Rita, letting Karl know that she had won that round of their exchange, at least for the most part. The mages were still attacking targets behind him, but they were at least throwing spells in his direction, as the mage from the Bureau of Elite Development had wanted. Karl tore a wide arc in the air, using full power, and stopped a dozen spells at once before the four streaks were finally dissipated, and the air between the two groups was clear. "Dammit, they increased the difficulty level, didn't they? We're all attacking at the same height, so he can burn energy to intercept us all at once." One of the mages realized. "But that burns his stamina as well, so he won't be able to do it all the time. He's just blocking the ones that are most likely to hit himself or the target. Everyone who messed up their aim might have a chance if you can bring it back on target once you're past him." One of the others commented. But they had forgotten that Hawk was in the sky above them, attacking downward, so he could still hit the attacks that tried to correct their trajectory when they were past Karl. "I told you that they had real promise. You didn't need to get involved so quickly." Karl heard Rita mutter as the class was ending, while Alice smiled back at her. The two Elites were like oil and water. They both wanted the same thing, but they had very different ideas about how it should be done, and they simply seemed incompatible with each other. No matter what the goal was, Karl could see that they would have a hard time getting along.