A few hours later all the students were summoned to the throne room. Given the world they were in, each of the students were feeling scared. Some were even holding back tears wondering if they could even go back to their own world or not.
"I am Asante, the prime minister of the kingdom of Eryndopia. All of you have been summoned here in order to perform the ritual to give you the power of Prana." The prime minister spoke. He opened up a scroll of sorts and then looked up at the students and the teacher. "You must be wondering what Prana is. It is a form of divine power that lets you wield a particular element to your will. Seven to be exact: Fire, Water, Thunder, Aero and Ground. The other two being light and dark magic. Light magic and dark magic are mostly supportive elements that don't possess any strength by themselves. Light magic buffs the recipient of the magic while dark magic de-buffs."
"You are talking about all this but why are we even here?! I do not care! Nor does any of my classmates. We have families back home too. You can't just rip us apart from our families and then pretend that everything is perfectly fine." Trystan cried out yet no one supported him except Katlyn.
"A lot of us have responsibilities and convictions. You uprooted our lives. We don't need whatever this Prana is." Katlyn growled.
"How da-" One of the ministers standing on the side was about to speak up but Asante raised his hand indicating the minister to calm down.
"That- we understand. We are very well aware of what we have done. But it is wrong to assume that we summoned YOU in particular. I suppose some responsibility lies on us too but we had only prayed to our gods and they led us to summon outlanders.... It is just that those outlanders happened to be you. The thing is there is a way for you to return home. A way that exists in the island floating in the sky. Currently no one lives there and we know no way of reaching that place. But titans do. If you meet them, they will help you and that is law." Asante spoke.
"Law? What's law?" Choi asked.
"Titans are obligated to help humanity in any way they can. If you were to ask them to take you to the island, they will. It is just that we do not know where titan of our nation is. But as far as I know there are two empires where their titans rule the empire directly. If you can help us stop tonight's catastrophe, we will personally arrange the carriages to take you to one of these empires and will do everything to make sure things go smoothly." Asante said putting forward his side of the deal.
Choi just sighed at the proposal.
"These are barely twenty. Still children. You expect them to help you fight god knows what? Most of them haven't even picked up a real sword in their entire life, and you expect them to fight?"
"That too I understand. But trust me, Prana will help them. You see we are also in very dire situation. You may hate us but we have no choice." Meinalik finally spoke.
...
The students were taken to a dimly lit room with an imposing statue at the far end. A man wearing a Kurta and stood right in front of the statue. "Greeting, my dear children. I am Imanta, the grand priest of the empire. They have already briefed me with everything so I will tell you a little more about Prana. Prana is not the only thing. There is something called Agama. You see... magic alone cannot exist. You need something to channel it. So our gods have given us sub-classes that we are often bounded to. When you receive your Prana, you will also get Agama. For combatants, there are five Agama: Trickster who slows down the enemy but doing little damage, Guard who is the tank, herald who have mastery over magic, vanguard who scouts the area and lastly Slayer who does most of the fighting on forefront usually alongside the vanguard. And light and dark magic user do not get combat related Agama."
"So there are more than combat related ones?" Choi asked.
"Yes, of course. But they are not important to our current conversation. Usually those Agama are basically revisions of combat Agamas." Imanta said. "But there is one Agama that... no one usually gets... not even the titans. The Eclipsed. This Agama is not just given to anyone. It is handed down directly by the blood moon. Such beings are not suitable to live in society and it is best to remove them before things turn sour."
"Remove...? Why?" Choi asked.
"The eclipsed... Or the blood moon rovers are beings who live in a secluded forest. They are usually friendly but they have lost meaning of their existence. They are born of a calamity so wherever they go... they inherently bring disaster to those around them. It is not that they are evil. Don't get us wrong. They are kind and civil. But blood moon itself is not kind. Every time it appears... calamity follows. They also have different form of magic... something that far predates our current system that was set in place by the titans."
Choi seemed satisfied enough with the answer and the ritual took place which basically involved touching the statue of the titan, Oroon. A titan with strong build, two horns on each side indicating his beast-folk ancestry. Weapons made of iron and gold were laid on the foots of the statue implying that the titan was a hunter.
All thirteen students got their Prana and Agama.
Katlyn smiled as she got the Fire/slayer combo. She seemed to have forgotten she was in a different world now while some students weren't as happy given the situation at hand. Jacob had gotten Aero/Vanguard while Trystan had gotten water/Herald.
...
Another hour passed and Imanta handed each student a grimoire.
"None of you can fight so we will not ask any to join the front lines but outlanders' base is often times multiple times stronger than our people's base. And so, instead... what we think is the best for you is to stand back and read the incantations from the grimoire handed to you to target the remnants of blood moon. It will be of great help to our soldiers." Imanta spoke.
"I have a question: if titans are to listen to humans all the time then, why is the titan not present?" Felix, a blonde Irishman asked who had received Water/Slayer.
"Titan of our empire, Oroon, does not help us if the situation is not dire enough. The last time they descended was four hundred years ago during a civil war that threatened to destroy not just the empire but also neighboring nations. Descend of blood moon is simply not important enough to warrant their presence." Imanta said.
"What if we want to opt out?" Trystan asked.
"That is a difficult question but I suppose we will let you opt out. Nothing good can come from forcing you anyways..." Imanta spoke sounding a little disheartened.
The students then left the room going out to the balcony to enjoy the starry nightsky that was impossible to see back on Earth when suddenly the sky fell dead silent and from the south came red light that covered the entire sky. Once the sky was covered in red, rifts started opening. The blood moon descended far away from the empire yet it was massive enough to be seen by everyone in not just the empire but also the neighboring nations and more. Felix and Trystan who had been acting confident so far suddenly fell to their knees in utter despair.
"No... way you expect us to help you with that..." Katlyn whispered while holding back her tears. A loud scream was then heard from the forest nearby. It was not just one monster but a stampede. A few dozen monsters flew up into the sky. Their faces distorted. Long with eerie smile. They were humanoid enough to trigger uncanny valley. Purple goo covered their bodies. It seemed they were not exactly strong as they fell to just one or two spears piercing their body.
All the students were transported to the city wall to help all the soldiers who were on ground fighting directly with the incoming monsters.
A few students picked up their grimoire and started chanting. They were not even looking up at the monsters but the attacks were big enough to hit multiple enemies at once. The difference between an outlander casting a basic magic and a local had become exceedingly obvious.
The fight seemed much more draining than difficult. Using magic put an immense toll on bodies of outlanders who weren't used to this kind of physical labor. But after killing a few hundred monsters, the area fell dead silent.
"Did... did we win?" Trystan asked but it was all too soon to celebrate when another loud roar was heard. A double headed dragon few out from beneath the ground up into the air while more monsters started emerging from the forest. It roared at the soldiers and outlanders.
The sense of victory they were feeling quickly changed into dread as even the soldiers gave us instantly. All the weapons fell to ground when the soldiers looked up at the dragon's imposing stature.
"A... a dragon!!" One of the solider screamed followed by every solider running for their lives. But just before the students ran for their lives too, Katlyn heard a voice.
"Go for it. You are not alone." A deep and rich masculine voice that was carried by the wind entered her ear. It sounded like a command yet Katlyn complied.
Unsure, Katlyn jumped forward into the battlefield.
"Kat!! COME BACK!!" Jennie, one of the classmates and her best friend cried out but all the soldiers held the student s back from joining in.
Shaking and anxious, Katlyn raised her hand as if challenging the dragon to a one-on-one duel.
Dragon, as if understanding her, roared even louder commanding the monsters to stand back and drop the weapons as if respecting Katlyn's challenge.