“So, in short, my answer is panic and die,” I responded coolly, sliding back into my seat.

I pulled my lips into my mouth as I stared at Herald. He looked neutral.

“So, do I pass?” I wondered hopefully, looking into the bright pink eyes of hope.

“A war…?” Herald asked, “If you are from another world, how do you know this one is fated to end by a war?”

I gestured at him as he proved my point, crossing my arms.

“See? You doubt me too much. So just ignore my goal and pretend I’m a normal student who wants to be an adventurer.”

Herald sighed, standing up, “Let us go through the practical exam next.”

A frost blue magical circle appeared, and in his hands a sword appeared, “Did you bring a weapon?”

I stared at the magical circle as it disappeared, then thought. Well… Obsidian was the sharpest thing, right? Or diamond? Regardless, both required a lot of heat and Earth, right?

Fire was cubes and Earth was triangles.

“Give me a moment,” I muttered, doing the math.

A lot of pressure and a lot of heat for diamond, right? So that would mean the area would have to be calculated separately from the amount of energy packed into that area.

Could I vaguely specify half of my magic? I hoped so.

So cube, 2x2x2? No, 4x4x4. Was more heat or pressure needed? Well I didn’t want to spawn straight lava, so I’d say the triangle would be… 10x10.

Soon, the same magical circle that the chancellor had used appeared at my fingertips.

The perimeter of the cube was 96, and the perimeter of the triangle was… Shit. I hated geometry. What was it? a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared? That would mean it was… what was the square root of two hundred? Uhhh ten times ten is one hundred…

Ah!

14-something!

Cool.

So the perimeter of the triangle was 35ish and the perimeter of the cube was 96. The area of the triangle was 50 inches squared and the area of the cube was 64 inches cubed. The energy put into each would be 25% of my maximum magic.

I wanted diamond or obsidian to be the sword. It should be balanced so that the handle is as heavy as the blade, and it should be as lightweight as possible. The atomic structure of diamond was just perfectly aligned coal or something. Hexagons.

Swords were meant to cut through things and be durable enough to do it more than once, so maybe a blade edge of a few atoms, something that slowly grew into a peak of a few hundred atoms before going back to being a few atoms thick?

I imagined it being a really cool sword, but it was plain. Which was good! It was a sword! It looked blackish, but not like it was made of obsidian. When it clattered to the ground, it sounded really heavy.

“… I think I failed.”

“What did you try to do?” Herald asked, looking disgruntled, “Who taught you that spell?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I asked, glancing up as I picked up the sword, “Oof. I was trying to make a diamond or obsidian sword, because I heard those were both great at cutting.”

This was really heavy. Was it sharp? It better be. I hefted it up, holding it before me. Whatever.

“The spell that we both just used. Who taught you it?”

“… You?” I asked, confused as I looked up at Herald, “I just copied your spell. I don’t actually know it. I only know, like, five or six spells. Maybe seven? Silas said I was hopeless unless I was able to create a spell of my own. Which I managed!”

Could I make a lighter sword? I feel like I made bedrock or something. Well, it wasn’t too heavy, it just wasn’t as light as I’d hoped it would be. At least the weight was spread evenly, like I’d thought of.

Herald hummed, eyes sharp, “You are able to copy a spell after only seeing it once?”

“Yes. Two spells saved to RAM, four or five to Deep Storage,” I agreed.

Then I realized he wouldn’t know what that meant. I further explained, giving the same explanation I gave to Silas.

Herald’s gaze remained intent on mine, “If that is the case, then you already pass the magical portion of the exam. Do you still wish to dual-specialize?”

“Dude I’m gonna get myself killed if I don’t,” I complained, “Just start the spar.”

Herald huffed, nodding, “Very well.”

The man dived forward. He was much slower than Silas. Even with my sword being so heavy, I found myself dodging his swings easily. My sword swung out.

Both of us froze when it cut straight through his sword.

“I love magic,” I said with a grin, “Mixing it with science always ends well.”

“Scy-ends?”

“Study of the universe,” I dismissed.

Herald stared at his sword for a long moment, then he sighed, “Unfortunately, a good sword does not pass an individual. Here.”

Two ice swords were made. I threw my obsidian-diamond-attempt away, reaching out.

THUD.

“Ooh, this is very light!” I said excitedly.

“Yes,” Herald agreed, giving the sword I’d made a long stare before looking at me, “Let us go to the nearby courtyard for our combat.”

“Okay!” I agreed, following him with my ice sword, “So is using magic allowed in the spar?”

“No.”

“Awe. That’s all I trained in, with Silas. He’s impossible to beat without using magic and swords at the same time, you know? At least for me, since I’m still a beginner. It was fun. If I annoyed him he would fight me for longer, so I got really good at using strategic magic,” I rambled on as I walked next to Herald, “If I got him to use magic, it was always great when I turned it against him. He always seemed annoyed.”

We went through several hallways that looked mostly similar before coming to a weird and plain-grass courtyard with a bunch of people milling about.

They all looked up, staring at me. I would stare at me, too. I bet I looked like something that came straight from a horror movie, blood stains still trailing down my cheeks and mouth, skin dyed red.

“If you would allow us the use of the courtyard,” Herald called, “I am administering a makeup entrance exam for swordsmanship.”

People murmured and muttered to themselves and others as the students—all in a blue and white uniform—cleared the area.

They stayed on the edges of the courtyard. Herald’s gaze flitted to each student.

“Where is your professor?” Herald asked, glancing around at them all.

There were about twenty people.

“Professor Silas is our instructor,” Someone with brown hair and eyes called, “We’re set to self-study until his suspension is over.”

Herald hesitated, then nodded, turning to regard me, “Very well. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’ve been ready the whole time,” I agreed, “Are you?”

“Yes. Do you—”

I dived forward, my sword swinging out.

Clack!

The swords hit each other. I didn’t bother trying to get into a strength contest, my legs almost having given out in the first move.

I needed to finish quickly, my body will give out otherwise.

Taking a step forward, my sword dropped under his. I crouched under his swing, side-stepping and swinging out.

A mound of dirt that sent me rocketing into the sky would be perfect, right about now, I mused as I pressed my advantage.

My knee reached up. Herald danced back. I staggered when my knee didn’t hit him, letting myself collapse as his sword swung where my head had been a moment prior.

I darted up, green eyes focused on pink as my sword swung out. Before it could fully finish, I gave it up. It wouldn’t hit him.

Changing my swing, I deflected his so I could get into his personal space. He dodged backward.

A brown magical circle appeared, then vanished. I hesitated, not pressing my advantage.

Oops.

Herald hesitated, breathing heavily. I realized my own breathing was hard, too. Both of us were panting, staring at each other.

“Sorry, habit,” I apologized after catching my breath, “That doesn’t disqualify me, does it? I didn’t cast anything.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Herald mentioned after a long moment, taking a bit longer to catch his breath.

I suppose he was mostly an academic sort. His main weapon was magic, not swordsmanship. While he technically dual-specialized, he wasn’t Silas.

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

“As much as I hate to say this,” Herald breathed regretfully, “You pass.”

“… Oh,” I said, tilting my head, “Silas said that I would have to fight a swordsman until one of us forfeit or died to be able to dual-specialize.”

Herald’s eyes grew darker, “He has great prejudice against you, it seems.”

“Oh, does he?” I wondered, dropping the sword so I could scratch at my ear. It was still wet with blood. Huh, “He was a good instructor, though? It’s impressive he can hate me but still teach me in a well and unbiased manner.”

“How did you train with him?”

“Uhh,” I thought, “Mornings were fighting him with a heavy wooden sword until I hit him. If I pissed him off or didn’t manage to hit him, we stopped at lunch and he told me to copy his spells using as many elements as I could, to try and get me to remember some of them beyond what I was able to at the time. We only stopped at dinner, because Lance had to do his soulmancy stuff after, so I used the rest of my magic to heal the servants or, if the servants didn’t need healing, I used the rest on a really powerful spell. We did that every day until he and Lance left. Oh! Right, to pass the magic exam I have to show you a spell I made, right? I worked really hard on it.”

Well, on getting it to work. The crude circle itself looked like a toddler designed it.

Herald stared at me for a long time. I hesitated. Was I talking too much?

“You exhausted your magic, body, and soul every day for how long?” He asked.

I blinked, tilting my head, “I dunno. Because of my soul injury thing I can’t really remember. I think it was two months? A month and a half? You’d have to ask them. Anyway, spell?”

I rose my hand straight up, my magical invention coming to life. The flickering fire of the circle brought me great joy. I thought of the math for it really quickly, used to the calculations by now.

“You don’t need—“

Skree!

The firework was thrown into the sky, bursting apart in a beautiful show of magic.

“…”

I stared up at the explosive yellows and oranges that blew apart, slowly fading.

Then I looked back down. Herald was still looking up, eyes focused.

“What is the purpose of that spell?” He asked.

“Celebration at night,” I answered easily, further explaining, “There’s a silent version, too, as well as a version that still has the sounds of explosions without having the screaming. That isn’t fun, though.”

Herald looked back to me, “It has variations?”

“Yeah. This,” I showed him the spell I used, with a rectangle cut into two triangles and a cube within the circle, “Is the one I used. This,” The triangles flipped to make one big triangle instead of a rectangle, the cube having a small rectangle drawn in it, “Is the one without the scream and this,” The rectangle vanished entirely, the entire circle becoming magenta, though it still had a fiery effect, “Is the soundless one.”

“To clarify, you had no prior knowledge of magic beforehand?” Herald asked, eyes not turning to focus on the spells I was showing him.

I tilted my head, glancing at all of the people around me.

“Due to my amnesia, correct.”

Herald’s gaze was glued to me like it had been in his office. I frowned at him. Why did he do that? Did he have a staring issue? Was he just thinking really hard?

I looked away, pulling my lips into my mouth. Cool. Great.

“So… now what?” I asked, looking back at Herald, “I passed, but I’m pretty sure I missed Orientation, and also I know literally nothing outside of what I’ve shown you. What typically happens after this? Where will I stay? Can I bring Kai back?”

If Kairos came back he would just lead me everywhere. I’d not even need Desmond, who couldn’t actually help me at this time of day.

Wait.

Would Kairos even know where everything was?

…

What am I even saying? He was the world’s best spymaster! The gods thought of him as extremely intelligent. If he didn’t know, he would just find out.

Herald’s gaze did not waver, his response relaxed, “Now, you will follow me to my office. I will tell you everything there, as well as have you sign some paperwork.”

I nodded. Okay, then. We walked to his office. I slumped into a chair as he pulled out a few different contracts.

On the bottom of several of them was a very memorable seal.

“Oh, magical contracts,” I said, setting them aside.

Reading through the rest, I glanced up as I went to sign them. Herald was staring intently at me, leaning back in his chair.

All of my favorite characters were villains outside of Silas. It was a fact I knew, it was a fact I adored, it was something I was very extremely aware of.

I looked through each magical contract carefully. How magical contracts worked was that you signed your true name or gave a drop of your blood.

Persephone was dead, so her blood remained an inactive ingredient, the contracts not signed just from me touching them.

I stared at three of the five contracts I’d been given. The other two were ones I recognized Aph signing from the Academy arc, mostly because they came to bite her in the ass several times. Like when she found out Lance was Valentine, but couldn’t tell anyone because he hadn’t actually hurt her or those around her yet. Of course, it worked both ways. The staff agreed not to hurt the students or do anything that would put them in danger as well as protecting them unless they attacked first. The students agreed not to attack or otherwise put the staff in danger unless they thought they were in danger.

Which was easy enough for me to sign in Persephone’s name. I was always in danger, from literally everyone. The contract was nullified for me, but not for others.

The contract glittered. On the back of my hand, a symbol all students of the Academy had appeared. It was a sword with wings.

The second one was similar, saying that I wouldn’t kill other students intentionally outside of agreed upon duels, and saying that I agreed to follow the Academy’s charter. It essentially just enforced the rules, making it so that I wouldn’t be considered a student the very second I broke an unforgivable rule, thus allowing the professors to step in.

I signed that one, too.

The other three remained unsigned.

“Beautiful attempt, really,” I acknowledged dryly, tossing the pages down, “But I don’t want to be your daughter, slave, or be unable to tell others of the horrors I’m certain you have planned for me. One, you’re like six or seven years older than me, and two, this literally doesn’t benefit me at all.”

“I would be your ally if you signed at least one of them,” Herald countered, gaze intense on mine, “And being considered my apprentice is not slavery.”

I rose my eyebrows. Riiiight. Sure it isn’t.

“As the chancellor of this school, you are already my ally for the next four years,” I countered, crossing my arms, “And I can’t read the hidden text on the contract, but I doubt that’s actually a contract to be your apprentice. Nice try. Thanks for the attempt, you get a gold star for trying, but I’m not dumb enough to accidentally sell myself to you.”

Herald’s fingers tapped at his desk as he stared at me.

“Lance, what did he do to you?”

“Huh?” The sudden change of topics bewildered me, catching me off-guard.

“You said he assaulted you.”

“Oh, yeah, he did,” I agreed, sighing, “Twice.”

“Now that you are a student, I could do a thorough investigation into it, if you would like?”

My eyebrows rose, lips twisting, “Nah. All I want to do is punch him in the face. Anyway, what’s next?”

“I have sent for your servant to be returned here, as you have made quite the excellent point, earlier. You clearly do need him. You have no knowledge of how to properly act within this world, so he should help with that. Once he arrives, which should be soon, he will take you to your dormitory. As you are the only female dual-classer at this moment in time, you will get your own room in the Rain Dormitory on the top floor. Your stuff is already there.”

… Huh? I’d heard of the sun, moon, storm, lightning, blizzard, snow, and pollen dorms, the last two belonging to staff of each gender. I guess that was the female dorm for dual-classing students?

“Oh… Okay,” I agreed.

“As you are a first year, you do not choose your own classes, so a schedule will be sent to your dorm with the schedule you must adhere to. Classes for freshmen begin a week after classes for others. That means you have the rest of today and tomorrow to settle in before having to get to your classes day after tomorrow.”

I nodded, “Oh, okay. Cool.”

Herald and I stared at each other for a long time after that. Eventually I started looking around. Everything looked mostly the same as last time.

The walls were blue, the dark blue floors made of carpet. The desk was a dark brown, and there were filing cabinets around. Various awards and other self-aggrandizing things were placed in various seemingly random positions.

A knock broke my intense avoidance of Herald’s unwavering stare. I accidentally met his gaze, turning to look at the door instead of keeping it.

“Come in,” Herald called after a moment.

I felt embarrassed at the pure amount of relief that filled me when Kairos walked in. He didn’t look happy, wandering up to me.

“You’re covered in blood, your highness,” Kairos pointed out.

“Yes. This place seems to enjoy making me bleed from everywhere,” I muttered, standing up.

Cyan hair and beautiful honey-brown eyes focused on mine. His gaze was constantly shifting along my face, and he sighed.

“You seem to get into trouble when I am not around,” He noted.

His expression was soft around the eyes. If I didn’t know any better I would say he looked concerned.

I smiled, embarrassed, “I’ve noticed things are calmer whenever you’re around, yeah.”

Without someone around to tell me how things worked, how was I supposed to conform to this world? I came from a very crazy era, slowly getting out of the age of information and getting into the age of insanity.

“Yes, typically I prevent your more crazy ideas before they can happen,” Kairos agreed.

I couldn’t tell what emotion soaked his quiet tone, but it wasn’t exhaustion. Which made sense. How could he be exhausted dealing with me when it took him about ten thousand words to get tired of dealing with Aph in the middle of the apocalypse? He was found because he lost his cool and spilled Aph’s blood, after all.

Sora was crazy good at tracking magic, I mused bitterly.

Why did my favorite characters all have to die? Sure, it was unrealistic that Aph’s servant would survive, but the greatest spymaster? Ugh.

The moment I learned anything about evasive and security magic I would teach Kairos. Then it didn’t matter what he did, he would be safe from being tracked by the world’s greatest assassin.

After that I would be content just leaving him be, like with Desmond.

“Her room is in the Rain dorm. Top floor. Her other two servants should be there,” Herald said.

I turned, looking at his blank expression. Why did he sound mad? I guess Kairos was someone who slit his throat, but no harm no foul, right?

“Of course,” Kairos murmured, “Let us go, your highness.”

I followed him faithfully. He managed to find the exit to the building—something I hadn’t found in any of my travels around the maze-like halls—and took us through the sprawling grounds of the Academy.

Beautiful pathways lined by flowers with bees buzzing cheerfully around them made up the majority of the outdoors. Birds flew above, cheerfully chirping. Some areas were sectioned off to be training grounds, with what looked like a track visible in the distance next to the forests connecting the Silver Kingdom to the Academy.

“What did you do to allow me to return?” Kairos asked, “I had not thought I would be called back so quickly.”

Embarrassment filled me. I looked up, the sky not having any clouds to stare at. I looked back down, hyper-fixating on a bumblebee after searching for a long moment. It was really cute.

“Dunno,” I lied, face burning, “Maybe he just had a change of heart.”

Kairos didn’t press me for answers, which I was grateful for. How could I say something so cheesy and pathetic as what had happened?

Oh, I care for you so much that the moment I found out you were gone I almost died~.

No. One, that would definitely be used against me. Two, that was embarrassing as hell to admit to. Even mid-dying I was ashamed about it. No way in hell would I actively admit to it.

I would have to ensure Valentine didn’t tell him. I didn’t actually have a precedent about anyone being rejected, in this story, so I had no idea how he would react.

Stupidly was a guarantee, though, if he was suddenly acting within the scope of his characterizations. Which was sad. I really did admire Valentine up until he proved to be the same man he was in the book.

Herald wasn’t someone I had any sort of control over, so I would just have to hope that he held a very distant dislike of the man and also happened to know which people in the Academy were informants and not. And also not wish to spread rumors about me.

… Wait, wasn’t there another person there?

Well I could just pretend for a moment that my freak out wasn’t something anyone would find out. An airtight secret that would not be spoken about.

The building Kairos took me to was hidden behind many others, directly between the track I’d seen in the distance and a dome-like white building that I vaguely remembered. That was for duels, right?

I didn’t think to look at the exterior of the building we went into before it was too late. It was very small. When we walked in I noted that it was quite shabby as well.

All of the windows were blocked off, and while no one was around I noted instantly that it was lived in. The scent of blood was everywhere in the building. It took three seconds for doors to start opening.

Creatures of the night all stared at me. Several eyes glowed red, though there were others whose gazes were darker than obsidian. Vampires weren’t the only nocturnal beings who did not like sunlight.

Arms wrapped around me from behind. My steps were stopped, me unable to continue.

“Hello, Master,” A youthful voice greeted.