The feeling of teleportation went and left Selica in a flash. She could have sworn her body turned into atoms before she could realize what has really happened. When she regains her consciousness, harsh cold greets her senses, an immense bone shaking winds strong enough to push her by the side.

They were on top of a mountain ledge. The teleportation circle is located inside of a marquee enclosure surrounded by cobblestone barricades on all sides. Inside the marquee people of different races and ethnicity totally alien to Selica are resting and socializing with one another, but are also visibly keeping an eye on the teleportation circle.

All their eyes immediately shifts towards the circle the moment Selica's group ports in. there was a brief silence but after a swift moment they went back to their own businesses. "What are they waiting for?" Selica tries to listen closely to one of the huddled groups as she slowly leave the circle.

"tch, just some nobodies"

"I heard talks there is a celebrity coming here soon."

"Hey, is that a kid? What's a kid doing here?"

The last comment she heard was probably meant for her as she follows where the voice was coming the commenter immediately hid themselves in the crowd.

"They're waiting for someone?" Selica looks towards the exit of the circle. Surprisingly, there are indeed only a few individuals who have decided to leave. Most of those who have left are bundled up in a group, it's very rare to see someone leaving the circle alone.

"Excuse me!" A huge push from behind immediately kicks Selica off her balance, immediately forcing her to dive forward, disheveling her bags array. The moment her bag hits the ground, the "Lock" spell immediately breaks and instantly bursts her bag open, throwing all her books and other stuff on the floor.

"H-hey!" Selica is distraught, she doesn't know which one to prioritize, the one who pushes her or her precious books. She tries to grab one of her books then she sees a foot stepping directly at one of her notes.

"Honestly, mind your place girl." Selica hears a haughty voice as a couple of mages goes towards the exit, stomping at her belongings along the way.

"Asshole!" Selica shouts at the voice as she tries to pick up her books at the same time.

The footstep stops. "What did you say, little sparrow?" The voice turns around and stares at Selica. It is an old man, covered in layers upon layers of vibrant fabric. His winters hat is made from white fur, probably a wolf's mane, and his face carries an ancient glare of someone who takes no remorse to anyone who will insult him.

For the first time ever, Selica is frozen still as the old mage stares at her. "I do not like your tone, Gregor teach her a lesson." Beside the man is a lanky individual who too is covered in layers just like his master. His eyes has a peculiar set of irises and the moment Selica stares at them, her throat stops breathing.

"Gasp!" She tries to claw at her throat, but there was nothing in there, whatever this man is doing to her it's most probably magic. "Please, please, help!" She pleads with what little breath she has, but no one bothers to even step forward. Everyone around her dodges her eyes and looks the other way as the mage continues their grip around her neck. Is this really how I'm going to die? She says to herself. By some arrogant mage who stepped on her books? Selica's thoughts swirl in desperation as her eyes starts tearing up. No, no I won't let this happen.

Then suddenly, a small rock zip pass Selica and hit the Gregor mage on the head. "Ah!" Gregor lost their focus, breaking their spell on Selica.

"HAH!" Selica takes one big breath and coughs at the same time. Her vision is utterly blurry from the tears from her eyes.

"Tsk. Come Gregor." The old mage grumbles as he turns around and starts walking away from the marquee with his entourage.

"Here." A soft feminine voice whispers behind Selica's ear. She looks up and sees one of her book close to her. " Apologies I was late. Let me help." Selica tries to see who is talking to her, but her teary-eyed vision can only see red, gorgeous red hair flowing by the wind. "Mages are truly assholes, aren't they?" The female voice immediately grabs a few of her pages, "Let's collect them first before we sort them out. Okay?" "O-Okay." Selica, still wheezing and coughing from awhile ago tries to compose herself as she and the mysterious lady collect her stuff.

It took them around ten minutes to properly collect all of Selica's notes and books. By this point Selica was able to calm herself down and somewhat see her apparent savior. Surprisingly she was not the wise adult lady Selica was expecting, instead it was a girl of the same age as her.

"There." The red head girl places all her notes in an orderly manner. She grabs a piece of cloth in her bag and ties them all up neatly. "I think this will work for now."

Selica is still recovering from the spell placed upon her awhile ago, and has yet been able to converse with the girl helping her out. "Th-thank you." Her lips coughs out a gratitude.

Instead of a response, Selica felt a soft cloth drying her wet eyes. The handkerchief is warm, and has a sweet tropical as well. Selica looks up and sees the red head girl carefully cleaning up her tears. After a few wipes, the red head places her handkerchief back in her pocket. "There, how are you feeling?" Selica didn't notice it before, but the way this girl speaks Common seems off.

"I'm alright now, thank you." Selica responds. "I'm Selica by the way. Thank you again for helping me with my stuff, and I'm guessing you were also the one who threw that rock at them." Selica extends her hand towards the girl.

"Ah! Yes." The girl shakes Selica's hand with a gentle grip. "My name is Gallian." Selica looks at the girl face in detail finally for the first time, and something is truly off.

There was some much red. Not only does Gallian's hair shines brightly red, but her lips, and cheeks as well. So much make up over such a sun-kissed skin really makes her face utterly bizarre. It's like a child's first time with make up so she wanted everything in her face to pop, but despite the immediate shock of Gallian's face, what really surprises Selica is her expressive eyes. There's genuine care written all over her gaze.

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"Ah, Gallian." Selica secretly thanks the princesses above for her exhausted state for not having any strength to react to Gallian's face. "Your Common sounds weird, you're a foreigner, right?" Selica tries to steer the subject to just try distract herself.

"Foreigner?" Gallian's looks at Selica with a quizzical look. "Aren't everyone here a foreigner?" Then her eyes starts to grow big. "Wait, don't tell me. You're from around here?? Like an actual native?"

Selica is starting to get confused herself, "Wh-what do you mean native?"

Gallian begins to gush hard, but at the last moment keeps her composure. "You'll find out later, I guess. Anyways since you're up here already it means you were selected by the guards downstairs, right? So you might get a chance it being selected, then." "Right, the test." Selica suddenly remembers that she was selected by the guards below earlier. "D-do you know what the test process is?"

"Oh, absolutely no clue." Gallian swiftly answers with a blunt response. "And for that matter most of these people don't either." She gestures towards the other mages still squatting inside the teleportation circle's marquee. "That's why they are all waiting for someone strong to latch on to, like leeches." Selica heard a twinge of venom on the otherwise sweet voice of Gallian for a moment.

Selica does her own reconnaissance. Everyone is indeed keeping an eye on everything. When a new set of people enters the circle, all eyes are immediately latches on on them, assessing and examining them. "Mages are an arrogant lot." Gallian adds as Selica is surveying the freshest batch of people being teleports in by the circle. "They are haughty and a proud folk, but also prone to ridicule. Ideally having their own pose of followers will help them elevate their status, but since everyone is searching for their own group, there's a weird social dance going on to determine which person will go with whom."

Selica grabs her neck and nods, "Oh they are arrogant alright, but it does feels weird. The ones below the mountain are not the same as the ones here." She remembers the less haughty but otherwise as much dangerous types of mages she saw in the Wizard Ward awhile ago. Gallian was confused at first, then suddenly realizing what Selica meant by down below. "I think it's because the Wizard Ward are full of mages themselves. Being surrounded by people like you eventually makes you humble and forget about status and stuff." She points at some of the clearly boisterous mages loitering the circle. "However these mages clearly came from outside the city. Their demeanor radiates "I'm the best person ever" as they might have been the only mage that exist in their life until now."

Selica takes a mental note of the mages inside the marquee. Indeed, most of the mages does and are trying their best to create an air of superiority or deference, baiting the other to keel to them first. It's like a mating dance, but for mages.

Then Selica remembers the obscene display she just did awhile ago, then suddenly her heart sank. "Then I guess my little display awhile ago just seals my deal, huh?" Selica meekly speaks.

"Yeah, pretty much." The cold cuts from Gallian really hurts Selica in ways she was not expecting. "But I guess that's also something I can relate to in a way." Gallian brushes of her hair to the side.

"That's bullshit," Selica has never heard of such audacity before. "Just look at you, you're absolutely beautiful. If I didn't know any better I might have mistaken you as an angel."

Gallian's already red cheeks somehow turns redder as she listens to Selica's compliment. "H-hey slow down with that, girl." Gallian places her hand on top of Selica's, trying to calm her down. Everyone around them seems to have notices the two girls talking.

But for Selica, Gallian is indeed some sort of angel. Beautiful, caring, and mature for her age, she's like the ideal woman she didn't know she wants to be. How such a person is able to be all of this and still have the honest eyes of a young girl is surprisingly miraculous.

The circle starts to flash once again. Another set of mages is entering the marquee it seems. However instead of the usual group, this time the people are oddly uniformed. There is a large group of black skinned individuals walking in a puppet-like manner, and in the middle of them is a blonde haired girl wearing a grey hoodie and gloves accompanied by another man with a scar on his face.

*"Hey, isn't that-?"*All of a sudden everyone starts to take notice of this group, and immediately went straight for them. A crowd starts to grow as the new group tries to push through it.

"Please let Miss Ashlin pass everyone." The scarred man inside tries to call the crowd off, but with that small statement, everybody else starts to join the crowd. The black individuals are uniformly pushing anyone who tries to enter. Upon closer inspection, Selica notices that these are not people at all, but are in fact mannequins.

"Is that really the Gollaza girl? To think the rumors are true."

"A local hero's daughter? To think I can actually see her in the flesh."

"I wonder if she'll join me, hey you're blocking the way!"

"Gollaza." It feels like Selica has heard that name before. Then it finally dawns on her. "Oh yeah the Hero Gollaza of Mashkanor City. So that's his daughter, huh?" The Gollaza is a well known hero in Mashkanor city, deep within the heart of the technologically advanced country of Indrisa west of the Medara region. The Gollaza is well known in acting as the city's guardian against any who may try to harm the country's life blood, its precious wind tunnels, and of course its citizens.

Selica has heard about this famous hero from time to time from her parents, and even from other adventurers traveling back to Heroes' Hill. Though hero in name, a lot of adventurers often spit on Gollaza's name as they say he focuses on preserving profits more than people. But Selica's convinced that these are just embittered words meant to tarnish a well known legend of their accolades.

"Oh?" Gallian reacts, "So I'm guessing she's some rich brat as well, huh?"

"Rich brat? What do you-?" Selica looks back at Gallian because of her comment but was only greeted with grim look from Gallian.

All this time, despite her answers and demeanor, Gallian's eyes have always kept it sweet innocence about them. But the ones Selica is starting at right now shows nothing but contempt and hatred towards the Gollaza girl.

"Huh?" But the moment she looks back at Selica, the dreadful eyes disappears. Gallian's face starts to flush and her lips start to shake. "We-well you're okay now, right? I think it's time for me to move." Gallian stands up.

"Hey wait!" What's going on? Selica tries to stop Gallian from leaving. "Are you leaving me?"

"Y-Yes, I'm really sorry but I have to go now. Good luck on the test!" Gallian scurries herself away from Selica.

Normally Selica would have been hurt by another person leaving her again. However, In Gallian's case something else caught Selica's eye. Instead of focusing on the abrupt abandonment of a new friend, Selica was more focused on what she saw on Gallian.

"Why were her eyes pleading?" Selica speaks out as Gallian scurries off out of the marquee. When Gallian left Selica, she didn't seem happy nor angry about it, but rather disappointed instead. Like a child trying to leave their favorite toy because their parents forbade them to play with it. Why would she have such eyes on someone she just met? And why would she need to leave in the first place? And Selica didn't even had any time to ask why she had such a ridiculous make up either.

I need to know the answer, Selica motivates herself as she stands up. She secures her books and notes properly, casting another "Lock" spell on it, and carefully stood up. Slowly balancing her gear back to an equilibrium before walking out of the marquee herself. Just like Shellon, Selica believes that Gallian too is a good mage. But instead of a simple, yet somber, memoir the soldier offered, Gallian is like a fresh mystery novel that's itching to be read.

And as a book mage there's nothing more enticing for Selica than a fresh new mystery.