Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Academy Student Kills Oganj!

Yesterday morning Zach Noveda shocked the world when he announced in front of gathered reporters that he had slain Oganj, the feared dragon that had terrorized northern Altazia for more than a century. Naturally, such a bold claim requires suitable proof, and the young Noveda heir had certainly delivered when he summoned the dragon’s corpse for inspection. Alliance officials invited in for the occasion have confirmed the body almost certainly belongs to the infamous Terror of the North, although further examination is necessary before they are willing to present Zach with the promised bounty for killing the beast…

Zorian read the article in stony silence. He was dimly aware of Kirielle and Kael staring over his shoulder so they could see what had captivated his attention like that, but he didn’t let that distract him.

Was this the reason for all those short restarts? Because Zach wanted to kill a dragon? Zorian wasn’t sure what to think about that. On one hand, the mage dragon was a menace, and killing him was an impressive feat. On the other hand, it seemed like a waste of time and effort — what did Zach really gain from this, other than combat experience? Dragon magics were of no use to humans, and Zach was already so rich that he wouldn’t gain much from Oganj’s hoard.

Whatever game Zach was playing, Zorian couldn’t figure it out. Or did the other time traveler just do whatever popped into his head at any particular moment?

«Hey, Roach, you went to class with this guy, right?» Taiven prodded after a while.

«Yeah,» he confirmed. «He was supposed to be in my class this year too, but failed to show up when the classes started.»

«He ran away from home,» Taiven said. «There was a recent scandal about that a week ago. They asked him about it in the article but he kind of dodged the question there.»

Zorian nodded. Zach simply told the reporters he had ‘a great number of disagreements with his former guardian’ and refused to elaborate. There was an interesting story in there, Zorian was sure, but if the newspapers hadn’t managed to dig something up on the whole thing then Zorian definitely wasn’t going to accomplish much by poking his nose where it didn’t belong.

Zach also told the newspapers he intends to go back to school ‘for a few months’ when he was prompted for his immediate plans. Great. He would have to lay low during the next few restarts, until Zach got tired of the academy again.

«Isn’t Oganj the dragon that annihilated an army sent to kill him?» Kirielle asked. «Or was that mother just trying to scare me?»

«A small army, and Oganj lured it into a trap,» Kael said. «The general seemed to think Oganj would wait in his lair while the army approached. He instead decided to do something about it before it reached him. He carved exploding runes into the walls of a canyon and lured the army inside. The only reason anyone survived is that some of the mages teleported out before the whole thing collapsed on top of them.»

«And I heard he killed two of the Immortal Eleven, too,» Taiven said. «So how the hell did this Zach guy kill the thing?» Taiven said. «Is he some kind of legend or what? Why didn’t you tell me you had that kind of guy in your class?»

Zorian sighed. What the hell was he supposed to tell her?

«Let me put it like this,» he said carefully. «During the first two years, Zach had trouble with just about everything. He was such a poor mage that people weren’t sure if he would pass his certification, and you know how easy that thing is.»

«That… doesn’t make sense,» Taiven said. «Even if the whole killing Oganj thing is a trick of some sort, he still summoned a corpse of a fully grown dragon. Even I can’t summon something that big yet.»

«I guess everything changed during the school break,» Zorian shrugged. «Somehow he went from a borderline failure to amazing genius between year 2 and three.»

«That’s totally ridiculous,» Taiven huffed. «How would that even work?»

«Time travel?» suggested Zorian shamelessly.

«Like I said, ridiculous,» Taiven countered immediately. «Are you sure he wasn’t faking incompetence?»