Twenty kilometers outside of vares in a dense green forest Belle was struggling against a giant wolf as Lucas watched on covered in wolf blood and surrounded by their corpses.
"How the hell is this training?" Belle shouted at Lucas as jaws snapped shut a few inches from her neck. The wolf lunged at her again getting within a few inches of her before she blew it away using a fire blast.
"Push the advantage." Belle heard Lucas shout at her as the wolf lay dazed on the forest floor. Belle rushed forward with her sickle intending to kill the wolf in one blow but the wolf was faster, leaping from its sitting position and tackling Belle to the ground.
The wolf kicked and clawed at Belle while she tried her best to hold it off using her chain. Drool and blood poured onto Belles face as the wolf chipped away at its own teeth trying to bite through Belle chain.
After watching her flail abut on the floor for what felt like forever Lucas decided to intervene kicking the wolf of her.
"Took you long enough." Belle said angrily as she dusted herself off.
"Why aren't you using any magic." Lucas asked Belle
"I am."
"No your not."
"You saw the fire ball didn't you what was that then."
Lucas took a few seconds t think before finally answering Belles question with his own. "do you know why the wolf isn't attacking us right now?"
Belle peaked over at the wolf that only moments before was trying to rip her throat out now standing perfectly still as if it were a statue. "I don't know."
"It isn't attacking because I froze its muscles with my lightening. that, that is magic." He started again as he walked over to the wolf. "magic isn't just the mindlessly releasing mana in the direction choice, you have to mold it into something more solid more dense and creative."
Belle took a moment to think about what Lucas said. Truthfully all she had done up until now was release of fire in any and all directions. She knew she could do more with her magic and she was now determined to prove that to herself.
she griped her sickle tightly as she took a few steps towards the now released and snarling wolf. the wolf one again lunged at Belle aiming to rip her throat out but this time she was prepared. she used her flames to control the chains of her sickle, grabbing the wolf by its hind legs and flinging it into a tree, then before the wolf could even fall to the the ground Belle bound it to the tree.
It snarled and growled as the chains tightened and its fur singed until its neck snapped with a crack killing it instantly.
"Great." Lucas started to say as Belle let the wolf down. "if we fine tune that control a little more you might be E rank.
"E."
"Yes E now come on we have a few more requests to do, next are some goblins."
The next few the day were spent with belle training through constant battles with monsters. through these battles she also learned to properly chain sickle techniques. Her dreams had also normalized since she got her gloves.
Experimenting also led Belle to discover that trying to conjure her black flames without her gloves one would lead to her creating white particles like the ones she created in the dream world with the same exact destructive property.
She could however summon the gloves to her whenever she wanted to matter the distance, which was convenient as she couldn't always carry them with her. One thing she couldn't make progress on no matter how she tried was finding out more about the boy in white, what a calamity really is or who exactly the boy in white was talking about in general.
Later during a relatively normal Thursday Belle walked into the free knights guild planning on registering for the E rank magic knights exam. She pushed past the doors and was met with a silence she would have never thought was coming from the guild where everyone was either happily chatting or arguing about who would take what requests from the notice board.
Instead everyone was huddled around the main desk as they gave an announcement that seemed to echo and echo on forever. "Our neighboring country and one of our allies Lous fell into anarchy last night as its king was assassinated during a coup."
They left the announcement to cement itself in everybody's minds before continuing on "It seems a faction of Lou's nobility hoped to side with Paldea in the oncoming war and their king, Luth was firmly against it. as such they assassinated him and cut off all iron and mithril trades."
As the announcement ended people began to break into hushed groups discussing what that meant for Greysha as lacking iron and mithril imports during war would mean utter defeat. The only other place they could possibly get enough resources for armor and weaponry was Nactus but they were on other other side of the continent, too far away for frequent trading.
Belle on the other hand could care less about the mithril or iron trades being cut. Lou joining hands with Paldea would definitely pressure Greysha's military which meant her military training would be much harder and start way earlier than she thought.
"I have a week longer at most." Belle thought to herself as she walked out of the guild building deciding she would rather rest now before she had to work herself half to death at training.
The house was quite with everyone having left earlier in the day, leaving whatever dishes they had used for breakfast still sitting at the table. she was three steps up the stairs when Lukas suddenly kicked open the front door scaring the hell out of her.
"Belle." he shouted before spotting her on the stairs.
"What?"
"Pack your bags we're heading to the capital."
"What!"
"Pack your bags we're heading to the capital."
"I meant what as in explain."
"Oh." Lukas said calming down slightly. "Well you know about king Luth Being killed right."
"Yeah I heard about it at the guild."
"Good good well thanks to that the defense minister decided to move all our top ranking officers to defend the royal family and the capital."
"Okay." Belle said confused at exactly how this connected to her going to the capital.
"And so because a lot of those high ranking officials were the ones that were going to conduct the military training you'll all be following them."
Knock knock knock. the sound of a knock on the door interrupted Lukas mid explanation. On the other side of the door a courier with an overflowing satchel full of letters.
"You gonna get that." Belle asked Lukas as another set of knocks ended.
"Nah you got it." Lukas responded as he rushed past Belle going up the stairs to his room. "Plus am sure its for you anyway."
"Sorry for the delay, may help you." Belle said to the irritated looking courier as she opened the door.
"Are you miss Belle Astraia?"
"Um, yes I am." Belle answered slowly while trying to thin of a reason as to why she would be receiving mail.
"Great." He ruffled through his satchel and pulled out two letter, handing them to Belle and leaving without another word.
"Thank you, I guess."
back in her room Belle opened the first letter which was from the free knights guild. It started out with a long list of her completed missions and ended with an invite to the E rank evaluation exam that would take place in two seven days.
"Yes!" Belle screamed as she read the contents of the letter. Sure it's only an E rank evaluation but it's still a start, plus if she performed well enough during the evaluation she could potentially skip straight to D maybe even c rank.
Riding on the joy of the first letter she decided to open the second. she ripped the golden seal of Avril academy the envelope had and started reading the letter inside. The beginnings were exactly what she had already heard from Lukas with some parts being deliberately left out or changed.
For example the reason they were moving to the capital ,the truth according to Lukas at least was that our the top ranking officials were being moved in order to protect the royal family and they were just an add on. But in the letter they stated that the reason the training camp would be held in the capital was to protect the country's future.
either one could realistically be true but Belle was more inclined to believe the former of the two. anther thing that aught her eyes was the fact that according to the letter everybody would including her would be staying in the school dorms starting that Saturday until the day of departure to the capital in eight days.
Eight days, she thought to herself as she continued to read the letter. that would mean she would be able to go for her rank evaluation without any issue assuming they would be allowed to freely leave the school dorms and campus.
she collapsed into her bead with the anxiety from hearing that she'll be staying in the school dorm and the excitement about the rank evaluation clashing in her brain.
"Am sure it'll be fine, right?" she said out loud to herself as she drifted off into sleep.