The Tales of Draconic Warlock

It's time to choose my mission.

Once I got up and refreshed, I ran towards the mission hall. Now as a student in my fourth year, I can take tasks that are a bit difficult in the eyes of the academy for a third-year student.

The academy didn't want to lose students before half time. I learned that long ago there were no such restrictions, which caused a lot of fatalities among the young talents, which caused damage to the kingdom in turn.

In order to not repeat the same mistakes, a lot of rules and regulations are placed. The students have to follow these or incur the wrath of the academy.

For example, it was what happened to Elisha and William who planned with Dorian to kill me. They were expelled from the academy. This was something that was not aligned with my personal interests but for other reasons, I kept my mouth shut back then.

Of course, not everyone would face such punishments as it was not easy to find evidence of the crimes. Many get away with their actions but I can't blame the academy on that. They were trying their best to keep the nation going.

They don't want the kingdom of Glessaria to become weak and the only reason why those two were just expelled instead of the usual execution for the guys who broke the rule of killing fellow students or even trying to kill them.

One was the heir of a Count house and the other was an old house that was on the verge of disappearing from history. The academy didn't want to cause trouble as executing them could cause unforeseeable troubles for the kingdom.

I learned from my father that the academy was the reason why those two houses paid us compensation. If not they could have dragged their feet or paid us much less. It was also another reason why I didn't blame the academy much.

With those huge compensations, my father was able to get rid of some dissidence against him in the family.

Some were paid, as those members were just against my father because they thought he made a profit from the battle while they lost their children. With compensation and explanation from my father has eased the tensions between them.

It made it possible to eliminate most of the scum from my family. For that, I am thankful but I am not someone who would let go of my grudges especially when the opposite ones had tried to kill me.

I would get them one way or another but as they paid the compensation, I can't go and kill them without proper reason. For now, I had to let go of them but I had a feeling that William wouldn't let go and he would come after me.

The reason why I am not defensive is that I learned some information about Rutgurd's family.

As the sole child of the present Count Rutgurd, William would have inherited the seat after his father. It used to be like that but that changed with his expulsion from the academy.

Normally he should have lost his chance of becoming the next count but his father pulled some strings and made it into a competition. Whoever comes out of this competition as the winner would inherit the count's title and lands.

It was open to all the family members who are from the same generation as William, with him included. The same generation as William means that the age difference can't be more than five years. Anyone who is five years older or five years younger than him can participate.

This reduced competition for William to the seat. William was expelled at the end of his fourth year at the academy.

Five years his younger makes to an age where the person who has yet to enter the academy would enter a year later.

Of course, the competition was settled to be held three years later and that would make the youngest one that could participate would have just completed his second year at the academy.

There is no way a student who just completed the second year would be able to compete against William. It's not just the ones of that year but the ones who are from the younger years may not compete with William in any way.

The ones who are a threat to him are the ones who are older than him. So he couldn't be careless.

He can't properly concentrate on the competition if he turns his mind on to me. So there was no way that he would make any moves against me, at least not until after the competition ended with him as the winner.

Elisha on the other hand was also restricted maybe for too long to even care after. Her family is at the edge of ruin and if she concentrates herself on me, it would push her family off the cliff. They would never get a chance again in their lives.

It was not as easy to become a noble as it used to be.

Centuries ago, the kingdom was unstable, with enemies on all sides trying to end its existence. It was easy to gain a title as many houses had fallen to the enemies and also could have gained merits easily in those wars and get promoted to nobles.

Now in this era, that was not the case.

Unless you go to the race battlefield, any gain merits there, the chances of gaining a noble title are slim. Of course, most of the lands were already divided. So if you want land, you have to carve up some from the land that was under the monsters' control.

In this era, pioneers are low. There was no reason to leave what they had in the kingdom and settle down in lands infested with monsters and safety was at the minimum level, whereas deaths were highly possible.

Unless there are high profits or the place where they live is endangered, no one would be willing to move to the wild areas to start new towns or villages.

So there was no way that the Siren family would lose their noble title in this economy. Once it was lost, it was almost impossible to regain that back. It means, unlike William who can come at me in another two years, for Elisha it may take a decade to do so unless she marries some rich noble whose rank is minimum of a count.

With how recent the scandal was, no one would be willing to take her hand so readily. Some day they would, as she was beautiful, devious but beautiful.

In a few years, the noble circle would forget about this scandal as there is always news that comes to light from time to time that is worth more to mention than an age-old scandal.

Well, before that could happen, I would be quite powerful and wouldn't need to fear a count.

So I can take a mission without fearing that someone will stab me from the back.

All the enemies that I had were either taken care of or had grown deep underground. They wouldn't surface anytime soon. It also doesn't mean that there are no dangers for me out there.

I would be careful but no need to be paranoid careful.

I can take the missions where I have to go away from the academy like any other mission where I can't be far away from the capital.

---

When I arrived at the mission hall, the situation was as I assumed. The hall was filled with fourth and fifth-year students.

Everyone has learned that the early bird gets the worm.

When I was in my third year, my classmates delayed their arrival and lost the best missions. Of course, not all best missions appear at the start of a semester or the year. It depends on what was happening in the kingdom, but those times were when the chances of the best missions to appear were high.

Before the start of a year or semester, there would be one month gap and that means, the missions that appeared in those gaps are available on the start day.

It means more missions are available and that means the chances of good missions appearing in those days are higher when compared to other days.

With previous years as an example, all the fourth and fifth years are present here to take the best of the missions available here. If they were any late there might be no missions to take.

I made a good choice by coming here early in the morning. If I had arrived any time later, then the chances of getting even a slightly good mission would be gone.

The only problem was the queue that I see in front of the registration windows. They were very long.

First I have to get a mission pamphlet and then register the mission. It's going to be a while.