Here is Orion Lake, with a harpë, in the corridor! Charging directly at the monster while yelling, but in more of a kiai way than a terror way!

Wait that lunatic what is he doing that's Orion Lake from New York isn't it -

The horrible slimy feathery centipede thing with too many teeth is perfectly happy to try to eat Orion first and Jinye second! It has no objections to this! Also its slime seems to be kinda melting the floor, or freezing it, or both!

Cool! Melting and freezing at the same time! Orion'll go with a lightning spell, which he puts through the harpë while he drags it through the center line of the horrible slimy feathery centipede thing!

It strongly dislikes this, but not strongly enough to stop trying to eat Orion! Now it's sort of flailing at him while it tries to devour him and smash him simultaneously! Also there's ichor on the floor. It doesn't look like the sort of thing you should touch.

Wait what is this American doing is he a lunatic or does he think he's A-lin or something he cannot possibly be trying to fight this thing - is he trying to get himself killed -

Ooh, ichor on the floor, time for footwork! Exciting! Harpë gets flung entire down its throat and Orion yells out a Greek spell he just learned for applying shear stress to a thing in many directions at once, which should cause it to kind of fall apart.

It... kind of falls apart. The floor is still slightly melting, but, uh, that's one dead mal.

Jinye stares. Nobody can do that. A-lin can't do that and he's death on legs. What nonsense is this and did she get enough information to memorize this spell and then sell it to someone else. She'd heard Orion was good but this is not good this is... this is...

Jinye stares.

"Woo!" chirps Orion. He mutters a weapon polishing spell until enough mal sloughs off of the harpë that he can pick it up. He got it from one of the juniors and it's cool. Yoink.

...huh there's a girl? Watching? Usually people flee or help, they don't just stand there? That's weird. She saw him go "woo", which was a kind of silly thing to do, does he have a feeling about that...? ...just a little. He will pretend not to.

"Thank you," she says blankly. "Taipei owes New York a debt."

"... HOW DID YOU JUST DO THAT?!"

"...were you not watching? Did you just now come back or something?"

"I- I-"

Okay, temper, Jinye, don't scream at reality being wrong. The world is the way it is and you need to learn to adapt to this; the correct response to impossible things happening is not to yell at them, it is to learn.

"Aren't. You. A freshman. How does a freshman kill that thing."

"Magic. And also a sword." Probably most people don't know what a harpë is. Orion didn't know till the junior who gave it to him told him to stop calling it a sword and corrected him about it not being a harp.

"THAT doesn't tell me anything." She is trying to breathe. Breathe, Jinye, breathe. "I know that you used a harpë and two spells in Greek" (and she switches languages) "and I speak Greek" (again) "And I still do not have the faintest idea how you did that and why you are not currently disappearing down that mal's gullet."

Also I fired my bodyguard. "I don't suppose you want a job as a bodyguard?"

"I don't really, no." Awkward. "Did you want to... trade for the spells, or is there something else you're confused about...?"

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

"I'm confused about your mysteriously extreme mal-killing abilities?"

She pauses. "Also, yes, I would like to trade for the spells." She won't be able to cast it but Xian will trade for the first if he doesn't already have it and making random mals fall apart sounds useful for once she has lots of mana. If she has lots of mana.

"It's my affinity. Silas handles trading stuff for our year, figure something out with him I guess?"

OH B-

"I understand." She pauses. "Thank you."

Okay, new agenda. Stage one, if Orion isn't going to start disassembling this mal corpse, call for in-enclave support to turn it into materials. Then find her bodyguard and fire him and possibly put a curse on him, though "he does not actually guard bodies after taking mana for it" might do. And then she can go try to find a new bodyguard. And a way to repay New York. And...

Orion doesn't seem imminently about to disassemble the mal corpse. Or clean up after himself. He picks his way through the ichor spots back whence he came.

Ugh. All right, time to get to work...