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Chapter 252: Time To Pay The Piper (Iola)

The thick and iron scent of blood filled the air, a nauseous stench filled the libraryand a shelf had been upturned over, a spillage of books were across the floor. The Hidden Library was a complete mess. Black liquid of bile splattered somewhere else and if the automatic cleaning spell were used around then it might have taken awhile.

Even the cleaning charm had proved itself useless.

But the one who had done such a mess was nowhere to be seen or found.

.

.

.

Iola had no need to want for anything elsewell, someone of her stature might have found reason to complain. The bed was too small, the sheets were too smelly and the mattress was lumpy and the pillows not enough for her to have a decent enough sleep. The two empty plates over the table had served precisely the same food and her palate was getting tired of eating the meals.

Couldn't the young man who had taken her in brought something more delicious?

Maybe something like a muffin or a dessert for her to eatthe sugar from the slices of fruits weren't enough. She wanted something sweeter, sumptuous and rich. And yet she had come here without offering much anything beyond that the jewels she had managed to take.

And more than that, when she in her pride had tried to study a tome that was far above her knowledge and comprehensionwhen she had spewed out nasty contents out of her mouth and nearly drained herself to perform a singular spell that was written in the tome he had taken care of her.

He had not batted an eye in cleaning her up, wiping her face and even clothes from that filthy stench that was almost near putrid. Iola had never experienced anything like it beforeshe had tried to learn Spells that were a little harder than usual, a Tier 3 was enough to be challenging but the aftermath of trying to learn them wasn't this terrible.

Iola promised herself to never touch it againwhatever its contents were, she could forget about them. What would she even use magic for? Well she hadn't actually thought that far for her own futureshe just knew that she didn't want to go back home. The arrangement for her life? She'd rather make her life tougher than to simply be used like a pawn in her father's hands.

But she could admit that she didn't think that her situation would be this unsavory.

The PIola pulled the covers over her body and squirmed in the sheets. It wasn't like she was hungry, no, not at all. And even if she waswhat was one day? Even in this kingdom of hers, there were those who still suffered. When she had to meet with her sick aunt, she had to have protection from brigands and pesky thieves.

Lowlife of the people.

And yet she couldn't help but think Why would a person take upon such a Class? Classes were important to one's life, it was essentially one's identity. A Cook was a Cook. A Mayor was a Mayor. Those things could not be erased so easilynearly impossible to do so, and for a person to accept the Thief Class or Crook Class, it surely must have been because of circumstances.

The Kingdom of Yegarian wasn't as perfect as she thought it would be.

And then came the squeaks, at first it was simply one. "A passing mouse" She muttered to herself with a touch of annoyance. The Kraelonia Academy was an ancient building said to have existed even prior to the establishment of the kingdom and nation so it was natural that there were little pests like them.

But then came another squeak.

"Tch. Is this an infestation?" she sounded annoyed but a shudder ran down her spine. This was unacceptable. She had almost never seen one before except one that was placed in a cage and was carefully kept by a passing Lord who loved keeping such things as pets. Iola would shift slightly from her blankets and then look down on the floor

There were eight rats.

Rats.

Not a mouse.

No, they weren't the cute small white-furred creatures kept and held in the hands of a doting Lord who had named their pet as 'Cheese', it was a filthy rat. The larger, long-snouted rats with hideous gray fur and a pink almost fleshy tail. Iola could barely hold herself back from recoiling and held back her breath. Four of them were scurrying around and poking at things, and the rest were looking around and then trying to scale up the walls or go out through the door to outside of the dormitory room.

She couldn't bear with a rat scaling up down her bedand it could if it wanted to. But surely rats were frightened of far larger things like herself right? Iola glanced levelly towards the table and nearly screamed. There were three rats. One was practically licking the plate, the other scaling through the wooden table and then the other was staring right in front of her. It squeaked and hissed at her.

She wanted it killed.

And yet she couldn't even movecould she use a shoe or throw a pillow at it and then attempt to kill it? A chilling atmosphere formed around her as the realization of the number and then continuous squeaks erupting around her meant. This was far from natural castle-abiding rats scurrying through its meaningless existence they must have a master.

"N-no." The signs were there and she had gotten far too relaxed. She glanced towards the wall where her invisibility cloak hung itselfbut it seemed to be far too late already. Iola couldn't just leap and reach for it to run away, she had already been seen. 

Squeak.

A yelp escaped her throat and she kicked off the scrounging rat with the heel of her foot and stood up on the mattress. It began to squeak at its companions and her heart pounded loudly. She was alone and surrounded by filthy things. Their beady eyes stared at her and the sounds that escaped from them. How long had they been here? Iola held out a hand and formed the facets of a Spell.

[ Alluring Lights ]

It was something that she had seen a Wizard do for her oncedancing sparkling blue lights that enraptured her attention. They flew around the rats like butterflies, and then one of them was swallowed alive by the rat. A gasp escaped her throat, but their attention was on the light and not on herand not on escaping either.

Now where was the hole? That dreaded hole where they had snuck themselves in. She had to block it off with a [ Sticky Web ] spell and then kill them herself? Could she even do such a thing. Iola gulped for a moment and glanced around the corners of the room, squirming each moment that a light found itself devoured or torn to shreds by the rats.

Each one of them seemed to have their own levels of intelligence, some enthralled as what she may have been when she was six years old and others immediately going on the offensive. Iola wished she had enough strength to use the Spell consecutive timesbut even if she could, and she could push herself to do so, she didn't have the best aim. And once she captured one then the rest would gang up on her.

"There!" she whispered a little too loudly. And then pointed towards the nearly invisible spot underneath the table, a shot came from her fingers and thick silk webs covered the hole with a number of sticky threads.

The squeaking thundered in the roomfar louder and noisier than it probably should have been? A warning? Another spell tore out from her fingertips and trapped three together. The next one pinned two rats against the dinner plate and she nearly retched out her food from hours ago.

"Stay back!" She kicked through the bed sheets and made it fall across the next rats trying to scramble up her bed. And yet one of them escaped and squirmed out of the blankets. And then the others began to break free through the sticky webs. They were far too stronger than what a normal rat should have beenand there was even one freeing its brother.

A door finally swung open.

Iola threw a look to the door and was met with the gaze of Timothy. "Beast Tamer!" she said with a hint of shame. The door slammed to a close and the man's gaze hardened on her, but then turned to the messa lightning bolt struck through the air and a rat fell down. It collapsed and stopped moving.

She blinked at the speed and the effects of the spell? Was it a [ Stun ] Spell?

And yet the spells then enveloped the entire room, different bolts flew out in varying directions and each one caught a rat and made it collapse instantly. Iola gaped for a moment and then nearly collapsed back then and there on the bed. This was?

"Who exactly are you?" Timothy asked. There was a touch of annoyance in his tone, but other than thathe looked perfectly alright from the Spellcasting. He wasn't pale and he didn't look winded down at all despite being more than capable enough to fix the problems that she couldn't.

Iola shook her head and looked right back at him, "Who are you?" She was no adept Mage, or anything like that, but she understood that the young man in front of him had no such capabilities when they first met.

"I asked you first. Where did you come from? Why do you have people coming after you?"