Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

Chapter 256: Graduation Approaches

Our final year of school passed by both slowly and quickly. As if he were trying to test our qualifications, Mr. Delmont gave us a huge mix of tests and projects. The workload wasn’t unbearable for our group, but many other students struggled to keep up. However, the constant stream of tests and projects took a backseat for us, because we had other things to worry about.

Namely, monitoring the worldstriders. Over the next few months, more and more worldstriders appeared in the mountains. A few people who lived in the mountains were driven away, and brought tales of talking blobs of ink to the cities. At first, people discounted these claims as rumors. Most Zelyrian creatures weren't intelligent enough to talk, after all. But as more and more people reported that the worldstriders had talked to them and driven them away, people gradually began to believe it.

The Vernese government didn’t take kindly to the presence of the worldstriders. After four months, Verne launched an expedition into the mountains to get rid of these 'monsters'.

The expedition army returned with half of its members dead. The others claimed that the worldstriders were very much sapient. They demanded that Verne recognize them as a new, independent country. They claimed the mountain range they had appeared in, as well as most of the surrounding land. Verne did not agree. The fact that an intelligent, organized group of 'monsters' were negotiating with them seemed to enrage Verne. Things devolved into an all-out war two months later.

For our part, the three of us found it surprising that the worldstriders were engaging in diplomacy. This made me realize, grudgingly, that the worldstriders truly weren't monsters. They were an intelligent species of people. They hadn't killed people randomly, or just squatted in the mountain range. They had a civilization and a culture that they wanted to preserve.

Not that I cared much. They wanted to kill Anise. That meant they didn't need to exist. It was as simple as that.

The first few months of fighting went catastrophically for Verne. They sent a few armies towards the mountains, but they were annhilated. The survivors claimed that the worldstriders were invincible. No gun or blade could harm them. No modern weapon could even interact with them. The Vernese soldiers couldn't find a way to fight back against the worldstriders at all. Instead, the worldstriders quickly spread across the south of Verne. In less than three months, they occupied more territory than the coalition army had taken.

Of course, we had no way to figure out the finer details of how the war was going. The Damilian newspapers seemed to think it was Verne's problem. We also didn’t get any hints about possible ways to fight back against the worldstriders. We didn't even know what Verne had tried, and how or why everything failed. All we knew for sure was that Verne was losing.

The rest of the continent… was content to sit back and watch. After the industrial revolution, most nations still felt threatened by Verne. In their eyes, Verne growing weaker was a good thing.

Of course, I wasn’t pleased to see anyone getting defeated by the Worldstriders. The more successful they were, the more potential they had to hurt Anise.

The advent of the worldstriders also had incredibly unfortunate timing. After Verne had lost during the last war, they surrendered their Zelyrian artifacts. I doubted that Verne had fully complied with this demand, but they had certainly lost a lot. Since their Zelyrian artifacts were so rare, they didn't try to use them against the worldstriders... which meant we had no clue whether Zelyrian artifacts were useful against worldstriders. One of our best opportunities to gather information was being completely wasted.

Still, there was nothing we could do to help. None of us were eager to go face an army of worldstriders all the way over in Verne. Instead, we immersed ourselves in re

Despite my concerns about Old Mo’s age, my healing magic kept him pretty healthy for his age, and he was very physicall active. I just hoped that he would stick around for another few decades. During the times when my mother had been lost in her addiction, Old Mo had stepped in and acted like a father for me. I didn't want to say goodbye to him at all. A small part of me hoped that he would somehow make it into the Market, although I suspected that was unrealistic.

Still, I could hope.

Finally, as the year drew to a close, the tests, research, and business of life started to slow down. We had turned fifteen, and finished our final year of alchemy prep school. It was time to graduate.