No way. There was absolutely no way that normal training standing on her head required. Or the normal trainer a piggyback ride demanded. Or this freaking backwards speech, shake of which Mary could not.

Oh, for...

Mary was so tired of all this. And to think that she once felt her life at an orphanage was miserable. She thought about all the people she had left behind ages ago. Was it really just a few weeks? It sounded so strange. But there was no coming back for her. Not now, not ever.

She sighed.

Back then, she hated when protagonists got all whiny in their books. Now... she kind of got their point.

It was a sunny afternoon, one that was way hotter than it had any right to be according to Mary's calendar. However, it may have been due to the weird geography of wherever the Academy was supposed to be, or just the typical inconsistency of the place, but the sun was scorching the land with not a single bit of ferocity less than when the girl first experienced it. Mortimer and Paolo both managed to impress professor Zuzurrizal so much that they got to attend the special evening advanced session. For reasons left untold, Mary was not invited, which was perfectly fine.

She walked around the Academy, paying little attention to the buildings jumping all over the place. It was easier that way, even if it required a bit of an effort to casually pretend that the path you wanted to take had always been blocked by a hundreds-year-old statue of a seventy-year-old dude wearing a bathrobe on top of breeches. Remote explosions and occasional bursts of both gunfire and hellfire were a bit harder to ignore, until you learned how to make sure they remained remote enough.

Finally, Mary found herself standing next to the entrance of the abandoned cathedral she had seen earlier on. Mary hesitated for a minute but ultimately decided to enter - she couldn't have known when the next occasion like this would present itself to her. There was even a pink ribbon tied to the door handle, which totally didn't look suspicious at all.

She entered the ancient building, maybe the most ancient she'd ever seen. Or maybe not, since the stuff all around the Academy behaved weirdly, and how anything looked probably meant nothing, but... yeah, she could almost feel the years weighing above her head, their significance bending her neck in a slight bow. The walls around her looked suspiciously similar to the stone bookcases she saw in the library, but she didn't have enough evidence to press any charges. There were long wooden pews on either side of the long room, most of which didn't face the time just as bravely as the stone and eventually collapsed. Mary kept walking towards the main altar, accompanied by the subtle song of the organs - they were constructed using the same secret techniques that those in her original world, judging by the melody played by the wind.

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Cool air caressed Mary's cheek with surprising gentleness. It must have entered through one of the few broken windows, but the wind carried not a single grain of sand. She was glad that most of the glass remained whole through all the years - though no two cathedrals had the same composition of stories depicted on its stained glass, those she recognised made her almost feel like home. Almost.

Finally, she found a mostly undamaged piece of wood to sit on near the very front. She usually avoided the very first places, but it wasn't like someone would notice her here, was it? She doubted any of the holy uncles were still around, and the sapling sprouting from the nearby pile of rubble was paying her even less attention than she deserved. Judging by the dust covering the floor, she was the only human to walk this hall in at least a century. She did seem to share the place with a rat or two, but she didn't mind that kind of company. Honestly, she'd had worse.

Mary sat on the bench and looked at the rectangular altar made of pure obsidian. It was the first altar she'd seen that dark - back at the orphanage, the church they attended had a mostly plain stone-substitute structure. Sister Angelica explained that it was well within the interpretation of the Church's canonical law - but Mary always considered it stretched like a line of third-graders crossing the pedestrian crossing with pretended supervision.

The stack of the books covering the altar was impressive, but from what she could see, their state was far from readable. She sighed, quietly wishing she still had her signed copy of “Harry Potter”. Still, any book would work - it wasn't like everyone was lucky enough to have such a treasure for themselves. With a heavy sigh, she opened a copy of “Cyclist guide to the Planet” she managed to spot in the dungeon run. Despite goblins and stuff, it was a part of the library.

She started reading but let her mind wander to her worries - and hopes. Would she stay with her current party? Sure, they were a pain in the butt most of the time, but... Well, she still had some time to think about it left, although if she wanted to change teams, she'd need to have a proper form filled with enough advance, so that-

“Hello, child,” came a quiet voice from behind her back.