Chapter 4

Candis East Highway

The Voidlands Near the City of Candis

The journey from Candis to Maston was not what Myles had expected. The four students and Mr. Habes joined what could only be called an army of other students chaperoned by heavily armed guards. Each guard wore a red band around their arm, signifying they were trained to use the aether space.

The guards were not active soldiers, but rather bands of shikari. Shikari made their living by killing the more dangerous monsters that pestered towns and escorting groups from settlement to settlement. There was an old story Myles had heard told in the breakroom back in Verith many times.

In the story, two common merchants found themselves separated on the road. One ended up in Rork and the other in Candis. The two were supposed to be wed that year, but despite their pleas, the soldiers refused to help them. Eventually, the woman gave her entire savings to a wandering band of shikari in exchange for her safe passage. After the woman left, nobody ever saw her again. The moral of the story was to be wary of shikari. Some shikari are incompetent and some are bandits in disguise. Regardless, putting complete faith in them is always a risk.

While the railroad connected the three major cities in the province, the only way to travel to smaller settlements was by walking the highways through the voidlands. The voidlands were what everyone called the area outside of the city walls. They might still be in the province of Rord, but it was the monsters that ruled the voidlands.

The group had left the gates of Candis on the east Candis highway. Along the path, pale blue lights lit the way, reflecting off the melting snow. The lights, called hope lamps, were a ward against monsters. When monsters approached, they felt the effects of a unique mixture of chemicals, mana, and monster cores. As Father Oswald was quick to add though, hope lamps are a feeble barrier. Monsters may be irritated by them, but they could still walk right onto the highway at any given time.

The shikari set a quick pace. Myles was glad for his time spent behind a forge. Some of the others who had led less physical lifestyles began to fall behind only to be mercilessly pushed on by the guards in the back. The pace did not slow. Staying still with a large group in the voidlands was asking for disaster.

As the day wore on, Myles found that not everyone was flagging. A girl his own age had kept to the pace, effortlessly plodding alongside him. Myles hadn’t noticed her for some time despite only being a pace away. She must have had the plainest clothes in the entire group. Myles had been teased before for having a plain sense of fashion, but this girl wore a hoodie that looked like it had been bleached of all color and pants to match. If not for her long stark black hair, she would have fallen completely into the background.

The girl glanced to the side and noticed Myles looking at her. “Hmmm,” the girl muttered, flipping her hood up and turning around without losing pace with him. “Let me guess. Rork?”

Myles shook his head. “I’m a Verith guy through and through. How about you?”

The girl kept moving backwards, showing no difficulty as she avoided tripping over the rocks and roots that wove their way through the highway. “I would say Candis, but I’ve really been all over.” The girl twirled her finger around, indicating her point. “All the people I met in Verith were more the academic type.” The girl nodded towards the back of the pack. “I figured everyone from Verith would be back there.”

If she had actually been to Verith and only met academics, she must have been in a wealthier area of the city than Myles had ever been to. The only ones who could be described that way would be the wealthy. The wealthy could actually afford to get an education. Everyone else had to work with their muscles.

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“My guess is you only saw a bit of the city then.” Myles gestured towards himself. “Most people from Verith work in a factory like me or in the mines. Only the upper-crust could be described as academics.”

The girl gave a slight nod. “Huh, good to know.”

“Can I ask you what your name is?”

The girl seemed to think about it, scratching her chin. “You can call me Rea.”

Myles nodded along, wondering what Rea might be short for. “I’m Myles. It’s good to meet you. I haven’t really met many other students.”

Rea turned back around and retook her spot to Myles’ right. After a moment, she gave a quick glance back towards Myles then looked forwards again, almost before Myles noticed. “Thanks. I’m not really a student though. More of a contractor really.”

Before Myles could ask what that meant, one of the shikari started grilling a pair of students behind them for talking, demanding to know if they wanted to attract monsters. Myles decided to avoid talking after that. No sense in testing if these shikari were the incompetent type after all.

The next two days passed in a blur. At the end of the first day, they all huddled together to get what felt like maybe an hour of sleep before they left again. The second day was much tougher. Myles began to feel the strain on his body and by the looks of it, some of the people who struggled on the first day were barely moving on the second.

On the third day, Myles could sympathize. Fortunately, they saw Maston in the distance after just a few hours of walking.

Maston was tiny compared to Verith and Candis. Where they were huge cities, Maston was a small town. Where the cities had huge stone walls, Maston had a flimsy wooden barricade. Hope lamps littered the area around the town, a desperate attempt to keep monsters from trespassing.

Maston was centered around a lake. You could visibly see the houses and stores getting nicer the closer you got to the lake and the farther you got from the barricade. Myles noted this arrangement. Mr. Habes had claimed the school would provide him with food and housing, but if he needed anything else, he was sure to find cheaper prices from the stores on the outskirts.

They got a warm welcome when they came into the town. Myles was surprised at how welcoming the people were. One woman actually had tears in her eyes as she stood and clapped for them. Myles quickly found out the reason for that. Maston academy looked both old and new. There were old brick buildings that had clearly been used for years, but these buildings were dwarfed by the newer buildings. Among the newer additions was a sturdy wall surrounded by a freshly dug moat that was fed water from the lake.

The academy was like a fortress in the middle of a backwater town. There was no doubting the money that went into building this and by the looks of it, it was the townsfolk who had received the lions share of the profit for building it.

Myles was pleased to find that as soon as they walked —or in some cases stumbled— onto the academy grounds, they saw a billboard with sleeping arrangements posted on it. Myles quickly found his name on the board listed with five others. From the looks of it, he would be staying in room 7 in a place called NorthLeaf hall.

NorthLeaf hall turned out to be one of the old brick buildings. It was appropriately located in the northernmost part of the academy, practically leaning against the newly built wall. Myles stumbled inside, feeling the fatigue of the past two and a half days weighing down on him. He just wanted to sleep. Classes didn’t start for another two days, so he would be able to get as much sleep as he needed.

The room was empty when Myles arrived. When he stepped in, he found himself in a great room complete with an open kitchen and group study space. The room was shaped like a half circle with eight doors in an arc around the back of the room. Myles ignored the kitchen—they had eaten on the road—and made straight for the door on the far left.

The door on the left led straight into a bathroom. Myles decided that he wasn’t that desperate for sleep—though the thought did cross his mind briefly—and moved on. The next door had a bed in it, and that was more than good enough for Myles. He was out before he even took his shoes off.

Myles slept through the afternoon and night, not waking up until mid-morning. For a moment Myles panicked, feeling it was much later than he needed to leave for his shift. It all came back to him a moment later when he heard voices chatting quietly in the great room. He was not in Verith anymore. He didn’t have a shift to work. He had a new life to worry about now.

Myles thought about going into the great room and meeting his new roommates, then he turned over and thought about it for another hour. Myles finally managed to convince himself to go out just after they left. He would meet his roommates soon enough. No sense in rushing things. There were more urgent things that needed to be taken care of first. Namely, he needed to find the cafeteria Mr. Habes had mentioned.