Selica runs as fast as she can, ignoring the rubble, the bodies, and most importantly the rain above her head. She’s been going at it for five minutes already, carelessly running towards a random direction after leaving her friends.

“Why?” She says for the nth time. “Why am I here?” Her clouded mind clashes with her dream and reality. The burgeoning mage school, the hidden magical secrets within the campus, quirky and loveable friends who she will cherish together, all of these are being destroyed by her looming future. Honestly, what are the experiences she’s gathered when she arrived in this city? Magical classism, potentially arrogant “neighbors”, a massacre, a future of more massacre, and friends.

Selica stops running. Friends, they may not be as quirky and as perfect as she had envisioned to have when she lives in Magecraft City, but deep down she sees both Gallian and Ashlin as friends. For the first time she raises her head and finally sees where she ended up running into. It’s utterly unfamiliar, though the buildings and carnage are the same, their destruction and placement are arranged completely differently. The one thing she does notice is that she’s much closer to the towering hill than before.

Selica closed her eyes in disappointment. “Ughhh, why did I run?” Another set of reality begins to settle in as she realizes her situation. She’s in the middle of nowhere, alone, and soaked by Psy Rain; truly the epitome of stupidity that she could ever do right now. “Good job Selica, now you’re really alone.” Selica tries to retrace her steps back, but the only thing she sees is the rain. Now that she’s noticed it, the rain seems to be getting stronger by the minute.

“I really need to take shelter, just to get out of this rain,” She rushes towards the closest building, this time quietly. Along her walk her mind continues to prod off all that has happened to her today.

Is it worth it all? She asks herself again, to fight and survive and be rewarded with...more fighting? Selica has never really enjoyed fighting, despite her hometown, she has never really been keen on having conflict be a part of her daily routine.

After a few minutes of thinking, Selica finally reached the closest building. She carefully opens the door, and looks inside first. A Silencer might be waiting inside, She says to herself. But after a few moments of peering in, she concludes it’s empty and enters the building.

The building is undamaged. Unlike the ones she’s been into a couple of times, this one doesn’t have any wreckages or corpses from previous hiding tenants. Selica sighs a relief and starts to dry herself a bit. However, when she tried to reach for her backpack, she realized it wasn’t there.

“Huh?” She looked and looked again, until it finally dawned on her now how light she was moving without the restrictions bestowed upon her by her backpack. “And now I left my backpack.” At this point Selica just sounds resigned, and is just accepting her ill fortune.

“How could this get any worse?” She tells herself, but suddenly realizes that it can get worse. She immediately pats her waist for her satchel. Fortunately her satchel is still hanging by her side if not completely drenched from the rain.

“Oh thank the princesses.” She gives out a heavy sigh as she slumps down on the floor. A wet satchel is good, it just means she needs to dry it up.

But how? Selica tries to use her magic, casting the “Sparks” spell to jump start a fire, but due to the effects of the Psy Rain, the spell barely forms as the foundation crumbles the moment it’s created. ”I guess I have to do it the old fashion way.” Selica took off her outer clothes and started to squeeze the water out. She then placed them on the stair railings of the building to keep her gear dry

While her clothes are hanging, Selica tries to wipe herself using damp cloth she had stored in a satchel. “Ugh this feels disgusting.” It was almost a futile effort, but every other rub she can feel her magical foundation slowly being rebuilt within her. After a couple more minutes she feels herself dry enough to be able to cast a spell. ”Okay, carefully Selica.” Selica slowly recasts the “Sparks'' spell in her hand. She worries that if she casts it with too much mana behind it, the Silencers will be alerted by her presence inside the building. ”Sparks'' Selica speaks softly as the fire slowly burns on her finger tips. She carefully calibrated her mana distribution to make the fire big enough to grant warmth, but not big enough to be detected. She then raised her second hand, placed it on top of the fire, and said “Mana Glove” on it. Slowly the brimming fire reaches out to the glove and fuses with her other magically enhanced hand, creating a very warm glove. ”Whew.” Selica has barely had any practice in combining her spells, but thanks to their low mana requirement, fusing them like this seems to work to her benefit. She then starts placing the fire glove on top of her clothes, almost instantly drying them up as her hands hover them for a few seconds.

It’s a grueling task, but after some effort, and some magical tricks, Selica successfully made herself toasty and dry. She looks inside of her satchel’s contents, and is horrified that almost everything that is not her notebook is destroyed from the rain. “Ugh-What?” Selica tries to scoop out the sploogy damp paper inside.

But before she can, a rumble starts to shake the building. She looks around her, alarmed by the rumble and by the building’s integrity towards earthquakes. She immediately tries to place herself beside the walls, avoiding any falling debris, but after a few moments the rumble subsides.

“Whew, what was that-?” ”Gregor you fool!” An angry old voice booms out from the quaking epicenter. “You are going to get us caught due to your mishap. Get up boy! GET UP!” The voice comes from behind the building, opposite from where she came from.

That voice sounds familiar, Selica thinks as she starts wearing her outer gear again. This time she casted the “Psy Shield” “Umbrella” spell combo on herself, and tried to sneak a peek from the back door.

The first thing Selica notices when she opens the door is the giant hill everyone is supposed to go towards. She didn’t realize she got this closer to the hill when she went through this direction. However, what really caught her eyes was what was going at the foot of the said hill. At the foot of the central hill, a large excavation is ongoing. Groups of what Selica could assume to be stone golems are working together to create a huge tunnel underneath the hill, and as their overseers are two people, one old man and one child, as they supervise them from afar. Selica can see the cause of the rumble as she notices the partial collapse at the mouth of the tunnel.

The old man is furious as he stomps on the ground beside the young boy beside him. The old mage is wearing once vibrant damp clothes, and a fox cap that has matted due to the rain. “Stupid! Stupid! We could have been heard by this foolishness Gregor!” The old man shouts as the boy cries in a fetal position.

“I-I’m Sorry!” Selica hears the boy mumbles.

The old man picks up the boy his shirt and leans close to him, his anger is distinguishable even from Selica’s distance. “Do not make me harm another child today, Gregor.” He releases his grip and drops the boy on the ground. “Now pick yourself up and begin again.”

“Wait, it’s him.” Selica finally recognized his voice. It’s the same man who stepped on her books earlier. The evil pompous mage who told his friend to choke her. She grits her teeth as her emotions start to flare up. She wants to stop the mage from abusing the boy, ending him even.

Her feet start to move on her own, her mind gets clouded with thoughts to both exact her revenge towards the man and save the boy. Selica starts to plan for the best possible way to confront the old mage. Does she have the spells for it? Can she do it without harming the boy? Is it even possible? "Wait." Suddenly Selica caught herself. What is she doing? Why is she running straight to danger? For what, to save a kid? That's not the mage way to do things. Selica makes another take to scan her surroundings and starts to assess the situation as a mage: cold, logical, and precise. She browses over the old mage and young boy and examines the expedition cave that they are building. It's the exact same plan she's had with Ashlin and Gallian in order to pass the test. "The test, huh." Selica recalls Enyi's words. Even if she did pass this hellish test, what awaits her on the other side of this exam is more fighting. Struggling, and even death. Things that the mage she wants to be wants nothing to be a part of. But here she is, about to run straight first to the same kind of danger she has just ran away from a while ago. "What's wrong with me." She shakes her head and lies back to one of the building's walls. She places her head over her hands and massages her temples. Deep breaths Selica, she says to herself. Conflicting voices rattles her mind making her lose focus. She needs to straighten out her thoughts and decide what she wants to do now, and not just go out there and do things recklessly. Selica starts counting off the facts of her current situation. She's alone and she just saw the old mage, with a kid he's been abusing, making the same plan she and the girls were hoping to do. If she tries to decide her next steps like a mage, the best course of action would be to leave these two alone with their excavation and once they are finished, she'll go back to the girls and tell them about it so they can follow suit. Just like what they discussed earlier. ”This is a test after all, and we have to remind ourselves to save ourselves first before the others.” Ashlin’s voice rings true right now.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Regarding her willingness to pass the test now however, she at the very least wants her friends to pass the test in flying colors even if she doesn't want a part of it. But there's a problem regarding this plan for Selica. She can't, in good conscience, let this young boy continue to be abused now that she knows about it. There's a part within Selica that is screaming at her to intervene, to rescue, to stick her nose where it doesn't belong. It's the part of her being an adventurer. It’s the same voice that has been telling her to help those who she can find throughout this test. Deny it as she might, but being raised in Heroes' Hill and having retired adventurers as parents have subconsciously molded her mental image of what a mage should be together with the tenants of an adventurer. For her what a true mage is one that values the search for magecraft but they are also willing to lend a hand to those who are in need. That's why she was having such difficulty in seeing both the conniving mages in the Wizard Ward, and the arrogant mages entering Magecraft City as something she aspires to be in the future.

"Hah, this is stupid." Selica sighs as she realizes the inevitable decision she will make. This whole situation is truly ironic. She didn't want to fight earlier, but now she does just because she saw one kid being abused by another. Whatever, she says to herself. She has everything to gain and nothing to lose with this plan. She can get a golden ticket for her friends into the city, and save a boy in one fell swoop.

*

Meanwhile somewhere close to Selica’s location, a group of mages seems to have found themselves trapped between a building and a group of Silencers.

The mage group consists of one boy with a peculiar armband, two warriors wearing heavy black masks and wielding a spear and a shield, and a hooded figure hiding at the very back. While the hooded figure is finding a way out from their predicament, the boy and the warriors are busy fending off the Silencers from reaching their place.

“It’s no good!” The hooded figure shouts, the voice is feminine but there’s an odd mix of brutishness and elegance with it. “Without my magic, we can’t-” ”Now is not a good time to be so downtrodden, mi’lady.” The boy answers with elegance, but the hint of annoyance in his voice doesn’t escape him. Stupid rain, he never knew such a thing like this Psy Rain could even exist. The idea that his magic can be neutered by this much by something as simple as rain irritates him to no end.

“I’m trying my best sir Kamphir.” The hooded lady answers, “But it’s just impossible.” She looks at her hands and tries to conjure something. Small specks of light; constellations slowly appears at her palm, but as soon as they are made they disintegrate into nothingness. “My magic relies on too much mana, I am as useless as a civilian right now.” ”Then get up front and act as a shield then!” Kamphir snaps and shouts as one of the Silencers throws a spear at them. It’s one of those iron spears again. He’s already seen what these things are capable of. Once struck by the spear tip, the magic stored inside one’s body will be suspended from activating. Removing the contingencies most mages have intricately prepared inside their body.

“Piss off!” He raised his right arm and made a hard right gesture, in response his armband faintly glowed while the spear bended in half, losing momentum and trajectory all together.

Kamphir feels sluggish after performing his magic, is this really the best he could do? Back at his parent’s mansion, he remembers he could mold iron like they are water with a slight wave of his fingers and the assistance of his armband. But right now? It took him all his strength to forcefully bend a single bar of iron. Pathetic, he says to himself. This rain is absolutely horrible.

But he is still fortunate however. At least his armband still works, if only barely. Without it he would never be able to control iron with magic at all. But still the lack of control that he could do with it irritates him to no end.

“Hey hey,'' One of the warriors speaks up after Kamphir’s display. “Lay off a bit with Tatsu over there.” One of the warriors speaks while their black mask moves motionless.

If not for their present predicament, Kamphir would have been completely unsettled by these warriors. Their sharp ear extending outside their masks tells him that these are elves. However, unlike most elves who wear masks over their faces, these warriors use a metallic helmet-like material to cover their entire head. He often wonders how on the heavens can these elves even breathe?

“She’s not used to...this.” The other elf warrior continues. “Hells, even we are not used to this.” One of the Silencer takes the elves’ talk as a chance to lunge at one of them, but instead of directly hitting their metallic face, the trajectory of the sword seems to have gone far wide, as if the Silencer is aiming at the wrong place from the get go.

“We were talking damn it!” The elf responds with a quick spear stab to the chest. It’s a precise stab, leaving barely a wound at the Silencer’s chest, but it’s enough to kill him. “Tsk, just a few inches off target, this is bad. My barrier is failing.” The elf warrior comments as he resumes back to his defensive stance.

“Kamphir is right...again.” Tatsu, the hooded mage behind, begrudgingly agreed. Of course he’s right, Kamphir thinks to himself. He doesn’t want to brag, but it’s thanks to his quick decisions and commands that their merry group has been alive for this long. But he doesn’t find any comfort in being right right now. Especially when one wrong call could lead to all their deaths. Tatsu starts chanting under her breath, Kamphir can hear some elvish incantation spoken in a brutish tone. He can feel the mana within her being forcefully pulled out through sheer will. After Tatsu finishes her laborious chanting, she creates a makeshift shield made from the same constellation lights she tried to do moments ago. It’s beyond crude, Tatsu was obviously keeping it together out of sheer persistence.

“WAAAGGGHH!” The shield is barely visible and it’s obviously going to crumble at any moment, but before it happens Tatsu charges with a guttural scream as she pushed through the Silencer flanks. Kamphir almost forgot that Tatsu is an orc despite all of her elvish elegance, it only took one scream from her to remind him of her true nature. The Silencer flank breaks, all the soldiers are scattered about and a clear path is made thanks to Tatsu’s charge, but afterwards Tatsu immediately falls to her knees and almost collapses. ”I got you!” One of the elvish warriors runs straight at Tatsu before she fell, catching her in the process. He held her hand and started checking her head as well. “Gods, you’re pale. Hey! Let’s go!” The man shouts and starts running away with Tatsu on his back.

“Go!” Kamphir pushes the other warrior in front of him, “I’ll cover the back.” He’s only been with these warriors for less than an hour, but he knows they are only good at fighting what’s in front of them. Running away like this puts them at a major disadvantage. The warrior, seeing and understanding Kamphir’s intentions, simply nods and starts to run with Kamphir at the back.

“Where are you going!” Suddenly an arm reached out and grabbed Kamphir by the ankle, tripping him on the floor. “I got one.” A Silencer is able to grab Kamphir by the ankle despite their current disposition. ”Shit.” Kamphir tries to kick this man’s face but he latches on his leg really good. Soon other Silencers have realized that he is being pinned down and have started walking towards him. He looks around desperately, looking for a miniscule of a chance to leave his hopeless predicament. It’s hopeless, his thoughts concluded. Throughout this entire predicament, his conclusion has always been the right answer.

But right now, he hopes to the gods that he is wrong.

“Get out of the way!” A voice pierced through his desperate mind. ”Hey what the-!”

“Stop her-! Guk” ”What the hell is that-!” Voices of Silencers echoed in confusion and pain as they immediately focused on the one charging at them from behind.

Kamphir tries to escape as he looks back and sees his savior.

The first thing he sees is red.

Red hair, red blood, and a red-soaked face. It is a red haired girl, the same age as him, slashing and beating the Silencer with her...wooden arm? No, it’s a splint. Her arm is tied to a wooden arm thing for some reason, and she’s using it to block their attacks and beat them with it before slicing or stabbing them with the sword in her other arm.

This woman is doing more damage to these Silencers than what they can do just a while ago. Kamphir assumes it’s probably because she caught them by surprise and vulnerable after Tatsu's desperation move.

”Retreat! Everyone retreat!” After the girl’s surprise attack, the other Silencers lose their morale and start scattering away. In total she only did three to four kills and the rest were just heavily wounded but her sudden presence was enough to vanquish any resolve left within their hearts. The red headed warrior walks closer to Kamphir, who is actually just sitting on the floor watching her.

Her face is covered in red, blood red. Kamphir assumes it came from both the Silencers and from the cuts visible on her face. Her wooden splint is soaked in both water and blood, he could even see some skin stuck in there as well. But the two outstanding features Khampir is mesmerized with are her eyes and hair. Her red flaring mane seems to be glowing under the rain, and her eyes looked hard, vicious, and cold. It’s as if Kamphir is staring at a hardened warrior blessed with a blood-soaked crown. Has the gods sent an angel to rescue him, or a demon? He thinks to himself.

“Ugh, this is going to be really bad after all of this.” The girl moans in agony as she holds at her splinted arm. Kamphir almost forgot that he was just rescued by a crippled person right now. ”Hey!” The girl shouts at him, breaking Kamphir’s shock. “Have you seen a curly haired nerd run around here?”