“Firstly, I would like to apologize for the misbehavior of Reynold and Leo. I made sure they received the proper punishment. Secondly, as promised, I’ll give you a rundown of everything you need to know about Harmonic magic.” Master Karlo said.

The three of us were now gathered in a room that resembles a meeting room. The interior looked a bit sober, with the exception of some expensive-looking swords hanging on the wall.

“Harmonic magic isn’t exactly a spell that you can learn and then cast on a whim. It works completely differently than mages are used to. One would rather call it a state of mind and body. Even though we here are specialized in training people to awaken and master their Harmonic magic, we don’t even fully understand how it works. We only have the experiences of previous masters and students who have mastered this type of magic. They are passed down each generation, allowing us to streamline a process that has historically had the highest success rate in helping people.”

“So, what do you know about Harmonic magic so far then?” I asked.

“We know a few things about it. First of all, not everyone is predisposed to awakening this special ability. Once again, we aren’t sure of the exact criteria, but we do know a few things that have recurred each time. The first one is that the user must have a high enough affinity towards various forms of conventional magic. Only having this is not enough, you could be the most talented mage of all of Avalonia, but you still wouldn’t be able to awaken it. The second criterium that we know of is ‘having a strong will’. In other words, you need to have a reason to awaken it and then also have the willpower to do so. This can mean something different for each individual. But usually, it means having a motive that is above oneself.”

“Sorry, but I don’t think I fully understand what you’re getting at. I understand the mana affinity part, but I still don’t fully understand how ‘having a strong will’ will help one awaken it. Besides, I don’t think I have a special motive, even though both of you have confirmed that I have awakened it.”

“It isn’t always tied into motives, but willpower as well. Besides there are most likely a few other criteria that we are completely unaware of. All we can do is examine all people here who have the ability to use Harmonic magic and then try and find out what criteria each person has in common. This place has already existed for centuries, going back even before the Saxonian civil war, which resulted in the split of Saxonia into what is now known as Mathardia, Silgardia and Zolgardia.”

Even though this place has existed for so long, they still haven’t figured it all out, huh?

“What doesn’t make it easier to discover all details is the low numbers of people who are known to possess this power. This has resulted in this form of magic slowly being forgotten by history, which favors conventional magic, being more accessible and having more practical uses. That’s why we are trying to preserve and expand our knowledge about Harmonic magic, so it will not be lost forever. However, it is still an extremely difficult challenge to train somebody at this. I have yet to successfully help somebody with the potential to awake their harmonic magic.”

I see, now it’s getting clear to me.

“That’s a nice explanation and all, but there is one thing that I still find strange.” Yasmin said.

“Why exactly is it even called ‘Harmonic’ magic? I don’t really see the correlation.”

I expected some answer from master Karlo, but I was surprised when he said that he didn’t know.

“Sadly, that is also a mystery to me. I’m sure many of the students and even the masters here have asked themselves why it is called that. Harmonic magic is an ancient type of magic that goes very far back into history. The information might be lost, but I’m sure there is a logical reasoning behind the name. But sadly, I can’t give you an answer, young lady.”

“Call me Yasmin.”

“I will. But I think that’ll be all I have to explain for now. Since it’s still only afternoon, how about you join us for today’s training, Naoki?”

“Yes, I will!”

“Perfect. I’ll first get you a uniform.”

“Have fun, Naoki! I’ll go to the village center for now, I’ll see you after your training.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“… so through this method, you can reach a purity of up to 95%. There are methods to increase it even further, such as…”

Ding dong ding dong!

That was the sound of the bell, indicating the end of the classes for now.

“I’ll stop here for today. Make sure you revise the contents that we went over today! It is very important.” Said professor Nolan.

“Something is still bothering me.” I said to no one in particular, but Fynch took it as if it was towards him.

“What is it?” Fynch asked.

“You see, professor Nolan is one of the strictest teachers of the academy, just behind professor Sildok. They’re so infamous for being strict and easily annoyed by misbehaving students, that people have dubbed them the “grumpy duo”.”

“I don’t see where this is going to.”

“Listen! Naoki has already been absent for the whole day and normally, professor Nolan would have commented on it, but instead he just glanced over the fact.”

“I think you’re overthinking it. He is probably informed of his absence beforehand.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

The next day, we had class from professor Sildok. Once again, Naoki was absent and professor Sildok didn’t comment on his absence. In fact, he didn’t even call out his name. That means that he has a reason for his absence. Some part in me still wonders where he is and what he’s up to and that hopefully nothing bad is happening.

Enough of that though, right now I need to focus on these classes. Especially since I have sworn to get the highest grades of the year. Why may you ask? Well, that’s because last year, I got second place in the highest grades. I can’t live with that fact, so this year, I need to reach the top spot.

Right now, professor Sildok is teaching at the front of the class. As always, his subject is one of the most complex ones in the whole curriculum. A lot of students tend to fail at this subject.

“Last time, I talked about mana itself and how it could alter the properties of physical objects and particles, resulting in a physical reaction. This results in things such as a fire suddenly appearing within your hands when it wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Today, we’ll be going further on what I taught, but something slightly different. Barrier magic.”

I’m not able to use that form of magic myself, but I am familiar with the workings of it and the theory behind it. I remember somebody telling me all about it not too long ago, when I went with my mother on a trading route from Silgardia to Liviera.

“Barrier magic is different than the other forms we’ve seen, because of the way it works on a fundamental level. Now, I’ve a question for the astute students among you, if you can answer this correctly, I’ll give you a bonus point towards your grades. What is fundamentally different between barrier and elemental magic?”

The stars aligned at this moment. This was the perfect opportunity to score extra points. So, I raised my hands.

“Silvia, you may answer.”

“The difference is that elemental magic works through mana altering the properties of physical particles resulting in the phenomena that we know of as magic, while barrier magic works through mana itself obtaining a physical form to block physical and magical phenomena.”

“Almost, but it is an acceptable explanation. The mana itself doesn’t obtain a physical form, mana is a fundamental particle that doesn’t change its properties. It always alters the properties of other particles. In this case, however, mana affects the particles that the caster wants to keep out, which includes mana itself.”

I sat there with a wide grin, knowing that I just scored bonus points.

The lesson continued on without much of anything happening. Professor Sildok explained further the theories behind barrier magic and even showed us barrier magic in practice.

“Now that I’ve shown you the basics behind it, I’ll now be continuing to the more practical side of this. Knowing what barrier magic is, is well and all, but if you can’t apply this knowledge in practice, then it’s useless. The strength of a barrier is dependent on a few factors. What are these? Again, whoever answers it right gets extra points.”

What were the factors again? Obviously, it depends on the mana of the user itself, the mana of the caster’s surroundings, but I’m pretty sure there was something else.

“Yes, Marcus.”

“It requires enough mana from both the user and the surroundings of the user. It also depends on the control of the caster over the barrier itself. Lastly, the caster needs to have high enough affinity for magic in order to create barriers.”

“That is correct. A splendid answer.”

I didn’t mind him getting the answer. Can’t win every single one of them.

I then looked back over to Marcus and he looked towards me, but this time with a smug grin.

Is he making fun of me right now? Oh, now it’s on!

I waited patiently for another opportunity, but I was still trying to pay attention to the contents. This can’t come at the cost of my actual grades either.

“I’ve got one more before we end the class. Now that you should have a clear understanding of barrier magic, let me ask you this. Let’s say there was a theoretical space where there was a vacuum with not a singular particle in it with the exception of mana, would you be able to cast your barrier magic in there?”

“I know professor!” me and Marcus both shouted at the same time, while raising our arms. We exchanged glances while we were waiting for the professor.

Professor Sildok looked really surprised for a second, before he decided to choose Marcus. God damn it.

“You wouldn’t be able to cast it successfully, as mana works by affecting other particles. Since it is a vacuum, there are no particles.” Marcus said, while looking very proud of himself.

I had about given in to defeat, when I heard the words that I wanted to hear the most.

“That is wrong. I guess you haven’t paid attention to what I’ve said earlier. Silvia, you also raised your hand.”

“Yes, it would work in a vacuum, because the barrier magic itself doesn’t occur because of affecting other particles. That’s just a result of it being cast. All you need is mana to cast it.”

“That is correct. With that I’ll be concluding our session.”

I looked back at Marcus and gave him a smug grin as payback from earlier.

Fynch noticed what I was doing and looked as if he was disappointed in me.

After that, we left professor Sildok’s class to go to the last one of the day. We would be taught by professor Yasmin, but when we arrived there, we waited five minutes past when it would normally start. We all looked confused and thought that perhaps she was late.

We then noticed that the headmaster was walking towards us, clearly intending to announce something to us.

“Students, professor Yasmin isn’t present at the academy today and won’t be for the next two weeks. So, instead I’ll be teaching in her place.”

“Why not? Did something happen to her?” One of the other students asked.

“She has some business that she needs to take care of. That’s all I can tell you. I can’t disclose more information to you.”

We all entered the class, curious about what business professor Yasmin has to take care of, but also excited because the headmaster himself would be teaching us.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back at the village of Zenith at the peak of a mountain, Naoki was training with master Karlo. Though that’s not what it looks like, to any bystander, it would look more like master Karlo putting him through a series of seemingly impossible tasks with the purpose of making the person suffer as much as possible.

“I got you now!” yelled Naoki at the top of his lungs, while swinging a wooden sword towards master Karlo. However, he quickly got intercepted and got hit at the back of his head.

“Still too slow!”

Master Karlo was sparring with Naoki using wooden swords. He was given the task of trying to land a singular blow on him, but without the usage of magic this time. Master Karlo was much more proficient at using a sword then Naoki, so even landing one hit seemed near impossible. Nonetheless, he still tried his best.

“Master, we’ve been doing this for over two hours already! When will this end?” Naoki asked, while completely out of breath and on the brink of collapsing on the floor.

“As I said, until you land a singular blow.”

“I don’t know what this has to do with my training.”

“In time you will see.”

“That’s what you have been saying for every time I asked!”

While Naoki was resting a short bit before going back at it, somebody was walking past the two going at it.

He curiously looked at the two of them, before he made eye contact with Naoki. Master Karlo didn’t notice him, because he was standing behind the master, who was facing Naoki himself.

Naoki noticed that person pointing towards his own foot, which he was moving in a specific motion. Naoki then looked at master Karlo who was ready to attack Naoki again.

Even though they’ve been sparring for over two hours, the old man somehow hasn’t gotten tired yet.

When the master got ready to swing at Naoki again, like he’s always been doing, he noticed that he made the same motion with his foot as the person in the distance showed him. Then immediately afterwards, master Karlo charged at him. Usually, Naoki wasn’t fast enough to deflect it, but this time, he could anticipate it and deflect it in time.

“Oh? Looks like you’re finally learning. Time to turn things up a notch then!” After which the master went faster.

Naoki couldn’t keep up again. He could barely block his attacks, so before he got exhausted again, he quickly went for a counterattack. He first deflects the master’s attack upwards. Then he quickly swung his sword downwards. The master looked at him disappointed because it was a feeble attempt at an attack. It could easily be parried if the master just moved his sword back in the trajectory of Naoki’s sword.

But when the two swords collided, the master suddenly froze and fell on his back.

Naoki looked at him confused, as he didn’t know what happened. The master was still moving slightly, so he wasn’t dead.

“What the-“

Then the person in the distance, who was in fact Reynold, ran towards them. He quickly looked at the master, before he quickly realized what happened.

“He hurt his back.”

“How did that happen? He seemed to move very nimbly before for very long.”

“It was probably because he tried to deflect your attack in a way that put the most force on his back. Let’s get him back inside.”

After the two put the master on a bed in his room to let him recover, they both quickly left.

“Will he be alright?” Naoki asked.

“Yeah, he will be, don’t worry! This is not the first time though. It has happened many times before. I think he’s getting senile.”

“I see.”

“Oh and thanks for earlier.” Naoki added.

Reynold just looked at him confused, which Naoki quickly picked up on.

“For the hint earlier, it allowed me to get a grip again during the spar, so it wasn’t as one-sided.”

“Oh that! That was nothing! Somebody once did the same thing for me when I was also training. That person was Leo.”

“Leo?”

“Oh yeah right, he was the other person earlier today when you and that other girl arrived at the front gate while we were on guard duty.”

“Oh, I remember now! Also, sorry for that whole incident earlier.”

“I’d rather forget about that. Because of that whole incident, I got punished by the master. But all is forgiven now! I feel like I even got away relatively lightly.”

“What did he do to you as a punishment?” Naoki asked slightly curious about it.

“Oh, it was no big deal. He just made me perform a handstand while balancing a cup of water for half an hour. He then threatened me that if I drop the cup, he’ll give me another punishment.”

Naoki looked worried at Reynold and wondered what kind of abuse he’s gone through.

“As I said, I’m alright!” Reynold tried to reassure him. But deep inside, Naoki still worried and hoped that he wouldn’t get on the bad side of the master.

“Anyways, who even is that girl that came with you?”

“That was Yasmin. My teacher. We both come from the Zahn Halvad magic academy in Silgardia.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of that place. But I have got to say, your teacher is some hot stuff. You know if she’s single?” Reynold said with a grin, while holding his shoulder.

Naoki was taken aback a little by his sudden remark and then said, “I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

“I’m jealous, while you have this cute girl as your teacher, I’m just stuck with this dusty old man, who clearly is of the age of retirement.”

While Reynold was slandering master Karlo, Naoki noticed somebody behind Reynold. It was the last person he hoped it would be. Naoki quickly made signs towards Reynold to tell him to stop, but he continued his slander.

“I know he had a job of training us, but he could at least act properly and not barbaric as he currently does. Who does he think he is? I’m starting to get tired of his ugly mug and am contemplating whether or not-“

Reynold then suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and an ominous aura behind him. He slowly turned around and quickly got cold sweat when he noticed who was behind him.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Master Karlo didn’t say a word but his eyes said more than a thousand words and those words were not of the nice kind.

He then quickly made a run for it and the master chased after him, as if he had never hurt his back earlier. Naoki then heard a loud scream down the hall.

“Rest in peace, Reynold. You’re gone but not forgotten.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s currently almost nighttime and the sun was starting to set. Lighting up the whole area bright orange.

Naoki just about finished his training for the day when Yasmin arrived back at the place. Naoki was sitting outside on the ground.

“About time you were coming back.” Naoki said to Yasmin.

“Did you miss me that much?” She said while holding multiple meat skewers in her hand and eating them.

“I was just curious when you were returning. Seems like you enjoyed yourself.”

“These are delicious, you know. Want some?” She said with her mouth stuffed with meat.

“Sure.”

She gave him a skewer and sat down next to him. When looking down from the mountain they were on, you could see the entirety of the village. It was located at the bottom of a valley between multiple mountains. That way, this village was very remote and thus hard to reach.

“You see that? That’s the village of Zenith down there between all the nature. Beautiful, isn’t it?” Yasmin said.

Naoki silently nodded.

“I can tell that this place has gotten much bigger in size since the last time I visited this place. Though I prefer not to remember my last time here, since it reminds me of something terrible. Something I’d rather forget about completely.”

Naoki got curious and wanted to ask her about it, but he decided not to, since he noticed that she seemed a bit uncomfortable about it.

Yasmin, however, as sharp as she is, noticed that he was curious.

“I can tell you want to know but decided not to ask.”

Naoki was taken aback by her remark.

“How did you know?”

“Body language. It tells almost everything about somebody. I’ll satisfy your curiosity this time. It was very long ago though. Since my last visit here. It was at the height of the Saxonian civil war. This place was fairly close to the front line between the Saxonian imperial faction and the Germanic faction to the west. The Saxonian army was encroaching on the territory the Germanicans controlled, which included this place. I actually grew up in this region. As you know, before the Gaeran war, this place was inhabited by the Gaeran people. After most of us got wiped out, the Germanicans have started to inhabit these lands.”

“Yeah, I remember hearing a bit about it at school.”

“So, since I grew up here, I obviously had to help defend this place. I won’t tell you the details, but let’s just say war is gruesome. It reveals the true degeneracy that mankind is capable of. Many things have happened and because of it… I… I made…”

“Uh… are you okay?” Naoki asks Yasmin, worried about her mental state.

“Well, I would be lying by telling you I am. But just don’t worry about me. It’s just that I tried to forget these things, because they’ve put a lot of pressure on my mental state. As I was going to say. I did some terrible things. I may seem like the friendly teacher now, but I was a completely different person in the past. A person that I try to completely separate from. Of course, that wasn’t without help from a particular person.”

“And who may this person be?”

Yasmin then looked towards him and said with a smile, “that’s a secret”.

“Even though I try to forget about everything, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have good memories. I met a lot of nice people here and outside this place as well. A lot of people that I cherished.”

He remembers that Yasmin was much older than she looked, as she had explained a while back.

She then stood up and faced Naoki.

“Well, it’s time we got going.”

“Where to?”

“Your training. We’re going back to the forest to continue. That’s why you’re here.”

“What?!? No way! I just got smacked by master Karlo for hours on end and then he made me do other nonsensical stuff. I barely got any rest!”

“You signed up for this, no backing out now!” she said as she was dragging him along.

Naoki resisted but to no avail. One might think that Naoki was being tortured rather than being trained.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Naoki’s ‘training’ as one might call it, continued, he slowly started to get used to his two teacher’s courses/abuse.

While Yasmin helped him master more and more elemental spells, master Karlo continued with his regiment to help Naoki awaken his Harmonic magic.

His regiment consisted of various tasks like carrying a large pile of rocks from the bottom to the top of the mountain, the usual sparring with the master, having him dodge attacks blindfolded and making him run errands for the master all without the use of magic. Though that last part may not have much to do with his training.

This continued for many days, until the end of his little excursion to this place came to an end. This was also when he snapped.

It was the last day before he’d go back to the academy again. While he was doing his usual task of carrying rocks up the mountain, he decided that enough was enough.

“Come on! You’re halfway there!” yelled master Karlo. Especially for a man his age, he somehow seemed to never get tired.

Naoki then threw the rock away, to Karlo’s surprise.

“What are you doing? Get it back and carry it uphill!” He yelled like a drill sergeant would.

“I’m starting to agree with what Reynold says.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if you like to yell at people like that and make them do useless shit, but I have had enough of this! I don’t know what any of this has to do with my training! All I’m doing is just performing meaningless and mundane tasks, while being yelled at by some old crusty man, who’s way past his expiration date!”

“Are you giving up then?”

“I am! I’m done with this!”

Naoki turned around and started walking uphill again, but this time leaving all the rocks behind. He then suddenly stopped, still with his back towards Karlo.

“I even have a parting gift for you.” He said rather ominously.

When he turned around, he blasted an extremely large fire spell towards Karlo.

Karlo, being as old and experienced as he is, had an inkling that he was going to perform such a stunt, so he wasn’t caught off guard.

He quickly unsheathed his sword and used his harmonic magic to cut through the fire spell, splitting it in two. This resulted in two large explosions which could even be heard all the way in the village at the base of the mountain they were on.

Out of the explosion, Karlo charged towards Naoki at breakneck speed. He had an angry expression, indicating that he was pissed off by Naoki attacking him like that.

Now, he was facing an ever-closing Karlo, ready to slash at him, but this time for real.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Down in the village, Yasmin was having a walk through it, sightseeing the place. As usual, she went to the same place that was selling meat skewers. This has become her favorite food place over the past two weeks.

“Give me eight of these.”

“Like usual?”

“Indeed.”

“You sure have a large appetite, miss. That’ll be-”

Before the man could finish his sentence, a loud explosion could be heard from the mountains. Judging from the direction the sound came from, Yasmin instantly knew where it came from.

“What was that?” the man at the food stand wondered.

“It must have come from the training grounds at the top of the mountain.”

“Those guys are always up to something, aren’t they.”

Yasmin first thought nothing of it and assumed it to just be the result of their training, but it all changed when Yasmin felt a sudden wave of energy coming from that same place. This time, her expression changed as she quickly recognized what it means.

She quickly turned around and started making a run for it.

“Hey! You haven’t laid for that yet!” the man yelled.

She threw a pouch of money towards the man as payment for the meat skewers she bought.

“You can keep the change!”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As the blade was now closing in on Naoki, he had to do something. When he realized what was happening, it was already too late for him to either dodge or to try and come up with something quickly to avoid a direct hit.

He instinctively crossed his arms, though he knew this wouldn’t do much. At this point, he suddenly felt a surge in energy throughout his body, concentrating in his arms. It was a feeling unlike anything he was familiar with. It almost felt like the feelings in his arms merged with his surroundings. He could suddenly feel everything in his arms.

As the blade was about to hit, a sudden loud metallic noise could be heard in front of Naoki.

Because he also instinctively closed his eyes, he got confused by the metallic sound and the lack of pain that one would feel when getting hit by something. He slowly opened his eyes and saw not master Karlo, but a large pillar of some kind of metallic element. It quickly dawned upon him that this thing seemed to have saved him.

Then, as if his arms had a life of their own, they moved on his own. Both arms opened and seemed to throw out something. This something was a bunch of bright orange sparks. They travelled around the pillar and made their way towards Karlo on the other side at high velocity. When they got remotely close to Karlo, a large explosion appeared again, but this time even larger than the one Naoki initially fired off. It sent Karlo flying down the hill injured.

A lot of things went through Naoki’s head at that moment. He felt like his arms had their own lives, but at the same time, he also felt very natural doing the things he just did. It did not require him to cast anything or to even think about it. He felt like he was in a state of low just then.

He then saw what happened to Karlo and quickly ran after him. At first, he seemed elated that he actually managed to beat Karlo, but he also didn’t intend to kill him.

When he approached Karlo, he saw him lying on the ground barely able to move. But this was not the thing that worried him the most. That thing was the expression on his face. It was not one of pain, surprise, or fear, but rather one of contentment.

“Are… are you alright, master Karlo?”

“I knew you had it in you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you realize what just happened? What you just did?”

“I know! I… I didn’t mean to harm you! I was frustrated at the moment, but-“

“No! Not that! The spells you just used. You were never able to use those, right?”

Now that Naoki thought about it, he was right. He looked behind him again and realized that he just used earth magic. Something he wasn’t able to do yet.

“That’s not the most important thing of all… It’s the thing that can be felt inside of you. It’s-“

“It’s harmonic magic.” Somebody suddenly said behind Naoki.

He quickly turned around to see Yasmin standing there.

“Yasmin! What are you doing here? Weren’t you in the village?”

“That’s right, but I quickly rushed here when I felt something coming from here. I wasn’t sure but now, I am. Look inside yourself. You have now awakened your harmonic magic. The most powerful form of magic known to mankind.”

Master Karlo then nodded to confirm Yasmin’s statement. That’s the reason he was smiling, even though he was in severe agony. After many years, master Karlo had finally managed to have his first success at training someone and having them awaken to their harmonic magic.

Naoki concentrated on himself and did indeed feel a strange swelling inside him. The same feeling, he experienced earlier in his arms.

“But… but I don’t understand. What did I do to awaken to this?”

“I’m telling you… My training does have merit.”

“Even then, I don’t understand how your ‘training’ resulted in this. All you did was make me perform near impossible tasks without the use of magic. I was forced to do the same thing over and over again, almost as if the goal was to drive me crazy mentally and absolutely exhaust me physically.”

Master Karlo slowly got up again, while holding his balance using his sword.

“That’s something even I don’t understand, but as I explained at the beginning, this method has historically proven to be the most successful. You put somebody through extreme mental and physical stress and if they can manage to overcome it without breaking either mentally or physically, they have the highest success of awakening. All they needed was a catalyst. And in your case, that catalyst was…”

“… me being attacked with my life in danger?”

“Exactly!”

Yasmin then hugged Naoki, showing that she’s proud of him for succeeding.

“Good job! Though you haven’t fully mastered it, you’ve gotten somewhere most people couldn’t.”

With that their little trip to the village of Zenith ended. They had to get ready to depart again for Silgardia and go back to the academy. Yasmin told Merain that they’d be gone for two weeks and if they were gone a day later, he’d give her an ear full.

“I wish you could’ve stayed her a bit longer. But I do understand you’re short on time. Perhaps you should come over once in a while again. I could help you sharpen your skills again.”

“I would like to sharpen my skills, but I’m not looking forward to it.” Naoki answered. Karlo then laughed loudly at his answer.

“Anyways, we should keep in contact, so here’s a communication device linked to the one here. You can contact me anytime if you feel like coming over again!”

He then handed him a round artifact.

Then, somebody quickly rushed towards the entrance of the place where they were at.

“Nobody told me you were leaving right now!” Reynold yelled while running towards them. When he arrived, he stopped to catch his breath again.

“I also heard you have awakened your harmonic magic, Naoki! Is that right?”

“Yes, it is.” He proudly responded.

“I can’t believe it. You come here out of nowhere for a few weeks and then surpass every one of us already.” He said happy for Naoki, but also with a hint of jealousy, though he didn’t really mean anything malicious about it.

He then looked over to Yasmin, whose beauty had caught his eye from the beginning, but now, he was able to get a closer look at her.

“You must be miss Yasmin, am I correct?” he said with a sudden shift in tone. Naoki took note of it and internally thought to himself “oh no”.

“Hey, uh, I know you have to go back, but I’m sure you don’t mind staying just a bit longer, right? I don’t where you have to go, but I’m sure wherever it is, it isn’t much more interesting than here.”

He then put his arm around her shoulder, which made Yasmin visibly annoyed.

“What do you say? Why don’t you stay with me a bit?”

“You know…”

Reynold looked hopeful towards her, hoping to get a positive answer out of her.

She then put her hand on his arm, which was on her shoulder and she threw him across the open area they were in. He crashed against a wall and fell face first in the dirt.

“… I don’t like it when people touch me unwanted like that.”

“I’m sorry for him. I ought to teach him more restraint.”

“Well, on that note, we really got to get going. We’ll keep in touch!”

With that, the two got ready to return to the magic academy.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The evening of the same day that they returned, Yasmin met up with Merain in his office.

“You’re back.”

“As I said, it’d be for just two weeks.”

“I never said I doubted that you’d be back by then. How did it go?”

“Better than I honestly expected. It’s been a very long time since I had witnessed somebody improve at such impressive speed.”

“Oh? Please elaborate.”

“You remember how long you had spent training with me to achieve the same goal?”

“I do, even after a year, I hadn’t even made a single bit of progress. So, I gave up afterwards.”

“Guess what? He already got further than you ever got in a span of just two weeks.”

“You’re not serious, right?”

“Do I look to you like I’m joking?”

“It truly was the right choice for me to accept him into the academy. I never expected him to be a prodigy as well.”

After a short moment of silence, Yasmin remembered again that there was something else she needed to talk about with Merain.

“There is actually another thing I want to ask you about. About Robin Cilhood specifically. To put it bluntly, I don’t trust that man.”

“Why so? As far as I’m aware, nothing suspicious has happened involving Mr. Cilhood.”

“Then what are these?” she asks as she put a bunch of pieces of paper on Merain’s desk.

He grabbed them and took a closer look. They were in fact letters addressed to Robin Cilhood. Upon reading a few lines through the letters, Merain gathered that the letters seemed to talk vaguely about something Robin had to do at the academy and they all seemed to be sent from an unknown person named ‘MW’.

“I’m assuming these are Mr. Cilhood’s letters? Why do you have them.”

“I… uhhh… just happened to come across them. But that’s not the point. Not only do they clearly state that Robin is working for somebody else, but I’ve also noticed that he has been behaving quite suspiciously the past few months especially. He’s been acting very secretive, especially when it came to all the magical devices and artifacts that he has stored in his room. He let’s almost no one in it, as if he’s protecting some sort of secret.”

“I’m not going to question further why you have these letters, but I do agree that they indicate something is off. However, I’m already working with the government on a different case. I’m not sure if we can start another investigation on top of that.”

“What is even being investigated? If you’re involved, it must mean something to do with the academy.”

“It’s about the legendary artifact that was being transported from the vault of the royal palace to our academy. We had a plan to make sure it would be safely transported, since it was a prime target for bandits. We took the necessary precautions to prepare for the worst-case scenarios. Somehow, a group of bandits knew of our plan and almost managed to take possession of the artifact. If it wasn’t for Naoki, who happened to be there at the time of the ambush, the artifact may have been in the bandits’ hands.”

“I do remember you asking me if I wanted to take part in it.”

“Yes, and I also vividly remember saying that you ‘didn’t feel like it’.”

She then awkwardly laughed after he mentioned that she opted out because of her laziness.

“So, we’re currently busy with investigating how the plans got leaked. Especially since it was only known about by a handful of trusted people.”

“I see. I don’t like waiting for too long, but if there is no other way, then so be it.”

“Oh, and Yasmin, one more thing before you leave…”

“What is it?”

“Please don’t steal personal belongings from other people again.” Merain said while giving the stack of letters back to Yasmin.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It has been a few weeks since we returned to the academy. I had to catch up with a lot of courses, but I managed to do so with the help of Silvia and Fynch.

Right now, I am attending Gerard Rubicus’ lesson in swordsmanship. As Yasmin had explained to me on the first day, Gerard was an ex-commander in the Silgardian military. Now, he has retired and decided to teach the students of the magic academy swordsmanship.

It is not a mandatory class, but an optional one. So, if somebody wants to attend his lessons, you can opt in.

“Now that I’ve demonstrated this technique, I will form pairs of two and you will practice what I just showed!”

The only people attending this course that I know, are Fynch and Marcus. Silvia opted out of this course as she wasn’t interested.

Since the teacher decided who to pair with who, I obviously ended up with somebody I hadn’t seen before. I was paired with a girl with dark hair. She was in fact one of the only girls who attended this lesson. Swordsmanship is more popular among the guys after all.

“Hi, I’m Naoki. I hope to learn from this exercise.”

“Moira. Let’s just get this over with.” she just bluntly said.

“So, I will attack first and you will perform the defensive technique.”

Without saying a word, Moira got into position, so I did the same.

I then approached her with the wooden sword we received to train with. I swung it the way we were supposed to when practicing.

As she was performing the defense as I expected, she suddenly frowned and then attacked my legs, causing me to fall over and land on my back.

“What the fuck?” I yelled out loud, being completely caught by surprise.

“Why did you do that? You were not supposed to do that.”

“You were holding back, weren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were holding back when attacking me just now, weren’t you?”

“Well, yes, but that’s because-“

“Because I’m a woman? Because you think I’m fragile?”

“Huh? No! I didn’t say that!”

“Let me tell you, I hate it when people hold back against me and when they’re not genuine.”

After saying that, she suddenly held out her hand towards me, suggesting that I should get back up.

“So, how about we do it again, but this time with more vigor?” she said, while still having that same stern expression on her face. Her face may seem displeased, but her mannerism suggested otherwise.

“Alright then! If that’s what you want, then here I come!” I said as I went for it again, but this time with more force.

We both exchanged blows as we were supposed to, showed by Gerard earlier. We did it so fiercely that it started to attract the attention of the people around us, but we just ignored them.

We continued practicing with all our focus, that we even forgot the passage of time. Eventually, Gerard told us all to stop because his lesson was about to end.

We both stopped to catch our breath for a moment. After we all changed our clothes in the changing rooms and started going on our way back, Moira approached me one more time.

“I liked our exercise session just then. We should do that again.” She said to me. I wasn’t sure if she wanted anything from me because we had never met before then, but I agreed out of courtesy.

“Yeah… sure.”

After that, she quickly left again to go on her own way.

“What even was that?” Fynch asked me, who had been walking besides me the entire time.

“I’m not so sure.”

“Also, did you really have to show off like that earlier?”

“What?”

“Yeah, you two were going at it like you were attacking each other for real. At one point, everybody even stopped to look at you two, before Gerard told us to stop staring and to continue practicing. What was the reason for that when it’s just practice?”

“She just asked me to be genuine. So, that’s what I did.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As we made our way back from the training hall to the main academy area and made it into the main building, Fynch suddenly had to go somewhere else first.

So, on my own I went back to my dorms as the lessons for the day were over. Because me and Moira were using all our force during practice, I’m now exhausted, so I can’t wait to plop into bed and take a good and long nap.

As I continued making my way to my dorm, I suddenly heard loud noises from the restrooms. From the sound of it, it seemed like somebody was getting bullied. I pretended to not have heard anything and continued walking.

I didn’t want to get involved with bullies. Seems like too big of a hassle to get involved. Besides, I’m too tired from earlier as I said.

But when I walked a small distance past the restrooms, I suddenly heard loud screaming from said restrooms. However, it wasn’t just any type of scream somebody would yell when getting bullied. It was a much more disturbing type of scream. One of somebody in extreme agony.