It was night, it was dark, and the only light present was from the headlights of a truck. The driver's face wasn't very clear in the midst of that darkness, making him unrecognizable at that distance. After showing such confusion in the face of the strange situation, he quickly spoke the first words that cut through the intriguing scene:

"What are you doing here?" He quickly discerned that the situation wasn't a threat and was startled by the oddity of it all. It wasn't hard to deduce this from Coven's body language, which, at that moment, was only of bewilderment and weakness as he gradually managed to stand up with some effort.

At first, he didn't respond, only trying to focus on processing everything happening around him, with his eyes quickly darting in every possible direction while remaining motionless. It was a stopped truck, a very dark street, and a confused man ready to interrogate him.

"That truck was moving earlier, and I fell from nine floors up, landing right on it at the exact moment it passed by… If I had fallen a few seconds earlier or later, I would be on the ground right now without even enough time to agonize," Coven thought. Indeed, it wouldn't have been long before he would have been run over and met a terrible end. A few seconds' difference, and his fate would have been different. It was an absolutely terrifying stroke of luck.

"Come on, answer me!" the man insisted, with his deep voice from a corpulent person, now increasing in volume, echoing in the student's head in an irritating way and causing him a slight headache.

"Bastard, shouldn't you be helping me?..." Coven thought, noting the driver's lack of social tact or, more precisely, empathy. Seeing this, he just controlled himself and calmly replied:

"Sorry... But I don't know how I ended up here. I just fell, and…" he began to say. And as much as he knew how he ended up there, he also knew that it wasn't his decision, nor did he understand where that strange wind came from, which he blamed as the biggest culprit for all of this if he had died. Then he began to think:

"It doesn't make sense for me to be so lucky to be alive… Yet also having the huge misfortune of being thrown off like that. It almost seems intentional!..." But this 'intentional action' didn't seem logical since it was apparently just an act of nature until his thoughts were interrupted by the man:

"Oh, fell? What do you mean you fell? Where do you live, kid? Fell... Right on my truck?!" His voice was heavy and grumpy. He seemed to be a simple man, but somewhat rude. He was stressed from a long day's work and didn't know how to handle the situation. However, Coven found none of that justifiable and, from the first impression, hated the guy, who just kept asking questions that he deemed stupid and useless. But he always tried to stay calm and didn't respond.

"Come on, just get down from there," the man said as he started taking heavy, slow steps toward the door where all the cargo passed through. The truck had no roof; otherwise, someone would have died that night from slamming into the metal. But it had a classic tailgate necessary for moving everything in and out. There were numerous plastic bags, and they all seemed to carry silk fabrics. Coven could feel the texture inside one of the bags that had torn when he fell. Before getting up, he had checked with one hand to see what it really was. When he realized it was silk, he almost laughed right there. It was too ironic that it was something so soft.

"Silk? This could have been anything... but silk fabric? What are the odds of this nonsense happening? It's almost zero. What a coincidence!"

In that situation, many thoughts raced through his mind in a split second. He was only dazed by the fall for a few moments. He had the ability to adapt quickly to whatever was happening. That was the bare minimum of what he aimed to achieve in life, constantly training to be prepared for any situation. After all, on the front lines, no emotion could get in the way, except perhaps the desire to destroy. Obviously, he was still human and didn't see himself as a cold person. On the contrary, he was sensitive, but he trained his mind not to fear anything at all. It had to be that way, or maybe deep down, he felt he was losing fear over time because, in truth, he had nothing to lose. Deep down, it was a decision that day by day was becoming ingrained in his body.

Something turned, and the tailgate opened. Coven then slowly walked over, and the moonlight, now much stronger after a massive cloud that had covered it moved out of the way, revealed his face to the driver. It was a pale face, with an indifferent gaze, and black hair that created a certain contrast with his skin. Upon seeing this expression, the man quickly changed his attitude. He recognized him.

"You study at the Great Academy, don't you, kid? I've seen you around…"

As Coven descended from the truck, he ignored the man.

The Great Academy of Mecha Piloting, as the man had mentioned, was the most important educational institution for humanity, far surpassing any school or university ever built. It was the first educational institution solely dedicated to the study of mecha technology and magic. The complexity was such that years of study were required to pursue this lifestyle, which was anything but easy, and getting in was the most difficult part, with only the best students being admitted. The mere act of being able to study at a place like that was a sign of pure prestige and the admiration of thousands of people. The spots were extremely limited, and only the most advanced were eligible to fill them. It wasn't just about intelligence but also strength, agility, and a great talent and affinity for magic. It was an institution dedicated to training soldiers for humanity's main army: the mecha pilots and the coveted front lines.

Moreover, the Academy and its related departments were a complex institution that wasn't solely dedicated to education. Since it was directly linked to the military, it was also where the most important missions to defend the Earth originated. If there were explosions in the sky, they were being fought by individuals on the front lines—those heroes who were molded by the Academy. In the past, astronauts were among the rarest and most awe-inspiring professions. Going into space or to another planet evoked admiration, and everyone found it astonishing. But nowadays, they are nothing compared to the humans on the front lines. The level of expertise required to master a mecha and manipulate magic was far beyond any human technology or spacecraft ever created.

"I work at that place. I've delivered all sorts of cargo to the Academy. You're lucky, kid, that today I wasn't carrying weapons or mecha parts. You'd be in pieces right now if I had."

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

However, seeing that Coven wasn't paying much attention to what he was saying, the man decided to be more direct.

"So, where do you live?"

"On this street".

"I see you're not much of a talker... Then you can walk back home on foot without any trouble," he said, with a tone that suggested the conversation was nearing its end. He judged that there were no further problems to resolve, and Coven seemed fine and didn't need any help, which was true. He hadn't suffered any real injuries.

"Yes," Coven replied, in a monotonous tone. His tiredness was returning, and at that moment, all he wanted was to be back laying in his bed.

The man, noticing Coven's disinterested expression, twirled his car keys around his fingers, turned his heavy body, and headed toward the light coming from the front of the truck. A slight breeze crossed the street, causing both of their clothes to sway lightly, cutting through the silence—a silence that felt slightly uncomfortable, as if the whole interaction had been a waste of time for both, but one they had to go through for the sake of minimum social courtesy.

Coven didn't want to talk, and the man just wanted to get back to his work. He didn't really care about the victim of the accident, and it was obvious his display of empathy was forced, ultimately a failed attempt. The man sighed, relieved that nothing serious had happened, though more out of concern for potential trouble or damage to his truck than any genuine concern for the student. He climbed back into the driver's seat, slamming the door and his voice was heard one last time:

"Don't go trying to kill yourself again!" he called out in an authoritarian tone, like a father scolding his child. But there was no affection in his words; it was clear he saw it as something shameful and weak for a man to do.

Hearing this, Coven could only feel scorn in his mind. He would never do such a thing. He didn't judge those who might, but his life was meant for taking others'—those of evil, unforgivable beings—not his own. That had been clear to him for as long as he could remember. He wanted to be a warrior and felt that he could only truly feel alive when that happened. His indifference would only be cured on the battlefield, with the adrenaline of war and the veil of death enveloping his soul.

***

A mysterious silhouette was stealthily hidden in one of the alleys near Coven's building. It seemed to have been watching him for a long time, ever since the beginning of the night. After seeing him return to his home and enter the building, it sighed.

It was a sigh of relief upon seeing him safe again. Once he disappeared behind the gate of the building, the figure retreated deeper into the shadows. She pulled out her phone from a bag she carried, and as the screen lit up, the brightness of the screen revealed the face of a dark-haired girl amidst the darkness. She navigated through the phone's files and opened a video.

At first, with the video now playing, the scene that had unfolded earlier began to appear again, but now, through the bluish glow of a cell phone screen:

Coven was looking down, and then up at the sky. The footage had been recorded from his balcony without his noticing, as if someone had been tracking his every move.

Holding the recording device in her trembling hands, as if already knowing what she was about to witness and trying to brace herself, she anxiously watched each monotonous second pass. But what happened at that moment—from a simple gust of wind to one so strong it resembled the winds of a storm, knocking him down—was a huge surprise. Fortunately, it was all stored on her phone now. She watched the video carefully, still not fully believing what she had just witnessed.

Coven, having fallen, should have been dead. There was no chance of surviving, yet something inexplicable had occurred.

As she watched the recording, seeing him fall, the camera soon shifted toward a light that flooded the area, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a truck. Witnessing this, with a growing sense of dread in her heart, she swore it was highly likely that, after breaking all his bones and smashing his skull against the concrete, that truck would mercilessly run over his body. To be exact, an impossible mercy, as there would be no time to brake.

Quickly and intuitively, anyone could conclude that there was no way, at any moment, that the truck would intersect with such precision for Coven to land exactly where he did and come out unharmed. But it had happened, and it was recorded—an event so inexplicable and senseless that the mysterious young woman's fingers trembled as she held her phone, as though she had just seen a terrifying ghost. Yet, this ghost was in fact a phenomenon so rare that, little did she know, it would be the first of its kind in all of humanity's history.

As she continued watching the video, she noticed that the truck had vanished completely, only to reappear in another spot, precisely where Coven was supposed to land, saving him like some miraculous intervention.

Could it have been magic? Perhaps… However, that would have been easy to track, and it would have already been detected since the presence of mana is perceptible to any student of magic. Thus, there was certainly no mana involved.

The scene was so bizarre, with the truck disappearing and then abruptly reappearing in another spot, that it almost seemed like a poorly edited video, or as if some frames had been intentionally skipped. Yet, it was clear that all the frames were there, that Coven fell just as he should have, that everything existed as it should… except for that one anomaly.

She had likely witnessed and recorded something out of the ordinary, as if she had just seen a glitch in the fabric of the universe. Everything was playing out in front of her, replaying endlessly on the screen of her simple phone. In her hands, she held proof of something unprecedented, defying every known law of physics, or at least functioning in a way that no magic should, with no trace of mana or explanation based on what was already known.

The truck had disappeared and reappeared, as though someone had intentionally moved it, but that someone wasn't there—that was the fact. Or as if, if any god really did exist, he had allowed the universe to make an error, a beautiful one, that only he could have decided to let occur at that moment.

Then, she put her phone back into her bag, closed it, and walked away, heading home and leaving the alleyway behind as the first rays of sunlight timidly began to shine through the gray buildings of the industrial district, a place devoid of life.