Cæ had never thought of himself as a traitor to the slums for successfully leaving them.
The idea had never even crossed his mind, in fact.
Who the hell living in the slums didn't want to leave them?
He glared at the senior enemy magetant even as the latter tried to kill him with a myriad of attacks one after another.
And yet again, failed.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Many flaming boulders were conjured, and they were flung towards Cæ with great speed and momentum.
And yet, they never reached.
BOOM!
The powerful water of the senior security team leader, the Flowing Shield, protected him once more from the attacks of their enemy. The burly enemy senior mage gritted his teeth as he pushed himself to the very limit, casting half a dozen spells at once as he continuously spammed attack after attack, bombarding his opponent with countless attacks one after another.
And, just like with the Hare of Lightning, the Flowing Shield didn't yield, deftly and easily conjuring and manipulating water to protect themselves from all the onslaught that his opponent dished against them.
Just like with the previous time, no attack could penetrate the Flowing Shield's powerful guard made of water.
Even as the burly meteorite flinger pushed himself to the very limit, the Flowing Shield continued conjuring and mobilizing powerful amounts of water, growing increasingly in control of the flow of the battle.
It was an extremely expensive defensive set-up, and yet, because the Elendir Institute of Magic had entrusted hundreds of millions of leenars to the Flowing Shield, there was nothing short of a significant gap in their mana reserves for the timebeing, making the Institute's security teams more powerful than the attacking enemy mages which has received limited magicapita and limited control over said magicapita, giving them very little mana in the process.
It proved to be a decisive variable that made for a very dominant factor that greatly tilted the balance of the battle in favor of the Flowing Shield, which led the security teams.
BOOM!
"Arrgh!" The enemy senior magetant was drowned in a powerful flood of water in the skies, quickly converging upon him and drowning and crushing him.
CRACK CRACK CRACK!
The crunching destruction of his bones and the tearing and rending of his flesh and skin killed their enemy in an instant.
"Huff…" Cæ heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Mr. Melte."
He turned to the familiar older man who had protected him several times in different battles.
He turned to throw a knowing look at Cæ. "…You're welcome, although I truly can't understand why you keep participating in the security teams when you become so much of a target."
Cæ shrugged.
"I'm trying to gain field experience as a magetant."
"That's remarkably conscientious of you…" The old man remarked. "Perhaps dangerously so. I would rather you not meet with death in your search for field experience."
"That's an ever-present risk," Cæ replied with a calm tone as he watched the enemy magetants retreat upon the death of their leader, again. "However, as long as I have you protecting me, it appears that I have nothing to fear."
"I highly doubt that," the older man remarked with an ominous tone.
His eyes sharpened with seriousness as he gazed at the retreating mages in the distance.
"The Colohen Mafia will not continue to lie down taking defeat after defeat, that I'm certain of," he continued with a solemn tone. "For one, it's simply too wasteful to keep mounting attacks like this on our operations without not only not making any gains in disrupting our operations but also losing precious senior magetants on their side."
Magetants, or combat mages, were among the most valued mages of any power bloc and formed some of the most important and fundamental deterrents to other groups from infringing on their territory and interests.
Cæ had to admit, he couldn't see how the Colohen Mafia continued to eat such one-sided losses one after another.
There were many things that they could do to ameliorate the problem, of course.
They could choose to deploy more forces, but that would take away much of the edge that the security teams of the Elendir Institute of Magic had over them. This wouldn't necessarily allow them to actually succeed in causing some actionable student deaths, but it would allow them to get away with at least ensuring that they suffer any more drastic losses to their numbers as they had in the previous few operations.
Cæ shook his head. "We might have to increase our contingencies when considering their responses, but for now…"
His attention returned down behind him to the slum district covered in clouds of dust lifted by the impacts of the battle between the two groups of mages. The evening Sun's gentle light illuminated the district for the final time that day as it slowly descended beneath the horizon.
The testing teams were done with the district, and the Trinity Housing sales teams were also almost done with visiting a final block of huts to sell what few remaining Havens they had left.
Cæ glanced up at the sky.
For the first time in a long time, the skies above the district of the slums weren't covered in a dark sheet of clouds, indicating an impending storm.
Instead, the skies were pleasantly cloudy, just enough to hold back the heat of the Sun to create a cool and soothing atmosphere with comfortable breezes that blew past the entire city.
"The monsoons are almost over…" Cæ murmured.
Of course they were.
Seasons came and went, and it had been almost two months since he graduated from the Elendir Institute of Magic and had begun selling Havens in the slums. The monsoons had even begun before he started selling Havens in the Colohen Slums, and it was now finally time to bid the season farewell.
Of course, thanks to the slum financial program, he hadn't yet seen a dip in sales, allowing him to continue the seasonal bull run before it was time to end it. He was grateful for the classified intelligence from the Headmistress for alerting him of this happening ahead of time, so that he could capitalize on it with preparations ahead of time.
However, despite the monsoons ending, the Havens had already become entrenched in much of the Colohen Slums, making for a brilliant bull-run of a start, allowing him to ensure that by the time the Winter rolled around, but especially the next monsoons, the success of Trinity Housings was virtually guaranteed.
The penetration that they had achieved in the slums in the span of just a few months had caused a lot of brand awareness to spread among the people of the slums.
Whereas once they were more suspicious, now it had become increasingly more of a trend to buy the Havens, doing their marketing for them. Word of mouth was extremely powerful in the slums that were devoid of imagination, which they could connect to and learn with the help of a search engine.
It was something that he intended to speak to Feidin and Seliphaz about after they cleaned up their operations and headed back home.
"Alright…" Cæ drew attention as he landed back on the mud paths of the slums, directing a sweeping gaze at the entire task force that had just finished all operations. "Time to wrap things up. Let's get out of here before it gets dark."
He spotted the six bewildered boys and girls, and two adults among the task force guarded by magetants who were escorted like they were royalty.
Although the task force had plenty of similarly elite-level talents of the Elendir Institute of Magic, the ones that they had found in the sum 'felt' more valuable due to all the efforts that they had collectively put into finding these six people.
Just these six individuals, along with the operations, had cost them almost a million leenars, making them priceless in the eyes of the students despite having the same talent.
Soon enough, the convoy of trucks and buses departed from their makeshift base within the slums, heading back to the Elendir Institute of Magic.
Cæ, on the other hand, had chosen to return to Trinity Housings headquarters for the first time in a while.
His job in the company as someone who handled commercial and market research had long concluded as the company had found, tried, and tested his strategy to an extent and found it to be very successful. With the strategy fleshed and yielding great sales, it was up to Feidin to keep this increasingly larger ship running while Seliphaz had already begun working on the next model of the Haven housing unit line.
WHOOSH
He flew just above the cityscape, zooming through the skies of the city as he arrived upon the gray factory base of Trinity Housings. It was only a two-storey facility that was rather spacious, featuring a ground floor that was for manufacturing and storage exclusively, and a first floor that was for their office alone.
STEP
He entered the facility, confronted with the familiar zoom of machinery working as the operators worked on the process, working on incomplete Havens and their raw inputs.
It wasn't long before he reached the top floor of the office.
STEP
"How are you guys doing?"
He expected to be greeted with a beaming Seliphaz and an excited Feidin.
He expected them to welcome him with open arms for the sheer quantity of sales that had occurred in the past few days.
Instead, they turned to gaze at him with shock.
Their eyes were intense with concern.
The air tingled with a strange form of tension.
Something was off.
"…What's the matter?" Cæ asked with a hint of uncertainty and alarm.
Seliphaz walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder as she gazed into his eyes.
"Are you okay? Did she do anything to you?"
Cæ stared at her with a baffled expression.
He couldn't even fathom what she was talking about in the slightest.
"The Headmistress of the Elendir Institute of Magic," Feidin clarified with a heavy voice. "Did she do anything to you? Did she harm you in any way?"
Cæ stared at him with a mind-boggled expression. "What?!"
It was such an absurd question that Cæ couldn't even begin to parse what the man was talking about.
"You haven't seen the news yet?" Feidin raised an eyebrow, shifting out of the way as he gestured to the monitor. "Give it a read."
Cæ threw a puzzled gaze at the two of them, before turning to look at the monitor. "I don't know what you're talking about, but—!"
He froze as his eyes flew wide open with shock at the news article that he had read.
[Merhen Von Nelnmont files civil lawsuit against Elendir Institute of Magic, Colohen Branch Headmistress Lenolia, alleging embezzlement and other violations of civil bylaws.]
Cæ shook where he stood as he did a double-take at the news article with a stunned expression, leaving him entirely bewildered at the title as he continued reading more.
The article, published now in the Colohen Times, detailed how the lawsuit alleged that Headmistress Lenolia had mismanaged funds and used them to bribe Cæ through his business for her own personal political agendas, while also brainwashing the student into her political ideology.
It went over some stunning details, including how the lawsuit provided evidence based on circumstantial things such as the frequency of their meetings, the fact that Trinity Housings was being protected by the Elendir Institute of Magic, among other things.
"Nonsense," Cæ gritted his teeth. "Actually accusing me of being brainwashed of equitism, can you believe this garbage?"
The skeptical gazes of concern the two threw at him irked him.
"I am not brainwashed." Cæ glared at them.
"…well, if you say so," Feidin remarked with an uneasy tone. "But regardless…"
His expression turned to the article.
"This might be the end of the partnership between us and the Elendir Institute of Magic."