Academy of Legends [A LitRPG Harem Adventure]

“That’s not possible.”

“No, it’s not,” Alice agreed. With a deft hand, she continued unbuttoning her uniform overshirt. The other had a firm grip around her staff. “But it happened anyway. So you need to come with me or you are dead.”

“You’re going to need to explain this one better,” I said. “Also… why are you undressing?”

“It’s hot,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I have my actual uniform stored in a locker here. Once I get into that, we need to go.”

“Where? And you still haven’t said anything about me, y’know, being dead.”

“You’re hot,” she said, which was not what I was expecting. As I opened my mouth to reply, she continued, “You feel it, right? Deep in your core, burning through you?”

Oh. That makes more sense.

“I do,” I said. That odd heat from the awakening had stayed in my body, and it had only been getting worse. I’d chalked it up to the cooling systems failing at first, but that clearly wasn’t the case. “You’re hot, too.”

“Why, thank you,” Alice said, flashing me a cheeky grin that could melt a stone soldier’s heart. “I am. The differences is that I’m just uncomfortably hot. You, on the other hand, have only finished half of your awakening.”

She started walking at a brisk pace, faster than a normal jog would be. I was able to keep up with her with more ease than I expected—must be the magic. Alice waved the back doors open with a flick of her fingers and set off towards the faculty dorms.

“You said half of my awakening. Is that because I’m supposedly Marked?”

“Yes. My awakening process was complicated too. If you don’t complete the next step, that heat is going to keep on building until you burn up inside.”

“Huh,” I said, suddenly very conscious of the slowly increasing heat. “Maybe we should hurry it up.”

The lockers she took us into were one that I’d never seen, and they were a good deal nicer than the ones assigned to students. Alice’s staff glowed, and one of the locker doors slammed open.

“Wait here,” she told me. “I’m going to have a short shower.”

“Didn’t you just say that I’m going to burn up?”

“In days, if not weeks. You have time. I need to carry you, and I’m not doing that in this damned straitjacket.”

With that, she walked into the showers and simply turned the water on, not bothering to strip. I turned, not sure if I was supposed to be looking away.

True to her word, she was done in less than five minutes.

“Very chivalrous of you,” she said, seeing my back. “You can look. I didn’t take anything off yet.”

Yet?

I turned to see a sopping wet Alice, hair splayed out in the air as she used her magic to brush the water out of it, translucent uniform suddenly clinging to a very shapely figure.

She grinned again, eyes flicking downwards briefly before meeting mine. “Like what you see?”

“My mother told me never to lie to a woman,” I said politely. “I don’t think there’s a red-blooded man alive who wouldn’t like seeing that. Plenty of women, too.”

“Aw, thanks,” she said. “What about men?”

“Hm?”

“What did your mother say about lying to men?”

“Cheat the shit out of them because they’ll try to do you first,” I said. “Of course, she also told me to do the same to women. I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to do that without lying, but I’ve planned on giving it my best shot.”

Alice giggled, her magic shaking her hair like she was a wet dog, splattering the floor around us. “Your mother is a wise woman.”

“Was,” I corrected her. We hadn’t talked much before she’d awakened. It made sense that she wouldn’t know.

“Oh.” Her expression fell immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories—“

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “Now, about making me not burn to shreds?”

“Right,” Alice said, regaining her composure. She raised her staff, and a pack flew out of the locker that she’d opened earlier. “I do need you to not peek for this part, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” I said, turning around. “Let me know when you’re done.”

Wet cloth rustled the moment I said that, and I heard something move quickly behind me. Instinctively, I moved aside, but it wasn’t aimed at me.

“Good reflexes, but don’t worry,” Alice said. “Nobody can hurt you while I’m here.”

I relaxed as well as I could, then tensed again when I heard that same thing get tossed through the air. It landed to my left with a wet thud, and I realized that she’d just shucked off her uniform shirt. Shortly afterwards, the regulation knee-length skirt hit the ground next to it.

A heat that had nothing to do with my burgeoning magic power rose within my face as a bra in uniform colors followed it, then a thin strip of fabric that I assumed had been her panties.

I resisted the temptation to turn around. I was a man of my word, and even if any man would have been challenged here, I was not going to break it, no matter how insignificant that word might be.

More rustling came after, then the clink of metal against metal.

“Thank you for waiting,” Alice said warmly. There was an element of authenticity to her voice now that hadn’t been there earlier. Had she been testing me? “You can look now.”

I turned and nearly jumped.

Alice’s “actual uniform” was nothing like the relatively conservative ones that we’d worn at the prep school. If I’d thought her being wet left little to the imagination, this took the cake. Apart from lacy bands of cloth at her wrists and armpits, her arms were bare, and she was almost topless. A white bra hugged her chest, exposing her cleavage—and she wasn’t even wearing a shirt over it. Alice’s midriff was bare, too, and the white-and-pink skirt she wore barely covered her butt and part of her thighs. Instead of the leggings female students tended to favor, she had lacy white socks that traveled up right past her knees.

To top it all off, she was wearing a tiara now, complete with what looked like a dragon’s wings sticking up from it on either side.

At first glance, I wanted to ask if she was trying to get herself killed in the Tower, but with my experience—and now my newly awakened magic—I could tell that there was more to this outfit than it appeared at first glance. The tiara was obviously powerful, as was the staff, but the clothing was infused with magic too, down to even the chain-like belt on the skirt.

“Wow.” The word escaped my lips before I could stop myself. I chose not to be embarrassed. That seemed like an entirely appropriate reaction to the beauty before me.

“It helps with the heat,” Alice said, suddenly a bit bashful. “With the magic infused in everything, it’s also better armor than you’d think.”

“I can believe that,” I said. She was practically radiating warmth. With how much I was feeling already, I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her in the stuffy uniform.

“It’s nice being able to finally breathe,” she said. “A bit strange being like this back on prep school grounds, but I’ll get used to it.”

“Are you going to take me now?” I asked. “I’m feeling a bit warm myself. Actually, I think I might go take a rinse myself.”

“Good idea,” Alice said. “It won’t fix it, but it’ll help enough to make the trip tolerable.”

I shucked my own uniform’s overshirt off—it wasn’t like I was going to need it anymore—and went into the empty communal shower, turning one on and standing under a steady stream of the coldest water it could manage.

After a couple of minutes, I felt almost normal, but I could already tell that wasn’t going to last.

When I stepped out, my pants now dripping wet, Alice extended a hand. “We’re going to fly for the next part, so I’m going to need you to hold on, okay? Gods know we’ve lost enough Climbers to accidents already.”

“Sure,” I said, unsure where this was going. “Fly with what spell? I didn’t think anyone in their first year of academy would know Flight, even a Marked.”

“The staff channels extra power,” she explained. “You’ll see when we get outside.”

She led me through a back route I didn’t even know existed, popping us outdoors in a quiet field.

“You know this place better than me, and I’ve been here for an extra six months,” I said. “Wow.”

“I have a better map than you,” she said. “You’ll get one too. Now, get ready.”

She turned her staff horizontally, then let go. It stayed there, and she threw a leg over it, sitting on it just behind the gem.

I realized what she wanted to do now, but… “Aren’t flying staffs banned for being too dangerous?”

She arched her back, tilting her head back until she could meet my eyes. “We’re chosen by the gods, En. There’s no such thing as too dangerous. Now get on.”

I sat on the back of the staff. For how narrow it was, it was less uncomfortable than I thought it would be.

As we started to rise into the air, though, I could already sense how unstable this was going to be. My parents had taken me flying before, when I’d been little, and it had never been nearly as shaky as this.

“You’re going to need to hold on,” Alice said. “I don’t bite.”

I took an incredulous look at her bare back, then shrugged.

This entire ordeal had felt like a dream, but as we continued to ascend, night air blasting us as we saw the prep school from above, it was growing increasingly clear that it wasn’t.

I wrapped my arms around Alice’s stomach, just under her breasts, and I held on for dear life as we shot into the sky.

She was very warm.