In the morning, in one of the main building's hallways…

Straf and Cycelia are walking side by side as professors are scrambling to fit more lamps between the already existing ones. They hop into the air, allowing the lights to float a little before braking and coming to a stop. The once pleasantly dim hallway, bright enough to see everything without much issue, has become almost hospital-like with blindingly bright light flooding it each step of the way. As Straf and Cycelia walk past, a door just a few paces ahead of them opens, and Aria squeezes herself out of the doorway.

「Ah.」

「Ah!」

Cycelia and the big-hatted professor exclaim when they spot each other. She and Straf stop in their tracks.

「Professor Aria… How are you feeling?」

Cycelia asks as the professor turns around, and hastily motions her gloved hands for someone to hurry to her. She holds them out, waiting to receive something.

A professor runs out of the doorway in a rushed step and hands her a magic lamp, then runs back into the room. Aria looks at the two, and approaches them.

「I'm fine, worry about yourself… More importantly, where are you going?」

She replies, and looks at the two from the perimeter of her hat.

「…That's right, where are we going, Straf?」

Cycelia asks, looking at Straf's bored face while he glances at her, before turning his eyes to the big hatted woman.

「…To demonology.」

Straf replies, facing the professor.

「Huh? We are?… Why?」

Cycelia's head perks up in surprise, then tilts as she furrows her brows.

「Good cop, bad cop, Lia-」

「Great! Take this!」

Aria says, and presses the magic lamp into Straf's chest.

「Catch!」

「…I don't want it.」

「Tsk.」

Straf says, holding his hands in his pockets as she lets go.

The lamp remains floating in the air. Aria audibly clicks her tongue when only Cycelia clumsily makes an aborted attempt to catch the lamp that refuses to fall, while Straf stares back at the professor with his mouth aslant. He sighs, and ultimately takes hold of it.

「I want you to light up the professor's hallway. It's really dark in there, so he's especially in danger. I'll give you one more.」

Aria waves her hands again, and the man runs out and gives her another lamp. She promptly hands it over to Cycelia, who tightly hugs it into her chest.

「Just leave them where it's darkest. Straf is pretty tall, so he won't even need a ladder. They're just a temporary measure, anyhow.」

The big-hatted professor adds, looking at Straf's annoyed face.

「What a bother…」

He grumbles, shaking his head.

「Isn't it your job to keep everyone safe? What would the queen say if she heard you complaining about having to do your job?」

Aria asks, placing her gloved fists on her exposed hips.

「She'd have you executed for mildly inconveniencing me… Right, Lia?」

Straf nonchalantly replies, and begins walking around Aria's hat.

「S- Straf!…」

Cycelia says with her voice meekly raised, stammering. She turns around to face Aria, and bows before jogging to catch up to him…

…

A few minutes later, in the very same hallway…

Damian and Tisha are walking past an open doorway when Professor Aria squeezes out through it.

「Ah.」「Ah…」

「Ah! You two!」

All three let out a mildly surprised utterance when they see each other, and Aria calls out towards them.

「Great, she's going to ask us to do something annoying…」

Damian says to Tisha in a hushed voice, clutching onto his temple as he lets out a pained and frustrated sigh.

Aria receives two magic lamps from another professor, then promptly transfers them to Damian and Tisha.

「I want you two to head to Professor Arkeis and check how he's doing. Give these two to him as well. Straf was here a moment ago, so it should be safe for you.」

She says, and glances at the two with her fists on her hips.

「Okay…」

Tisha nods her golden head, and Damian lets out a long sigh. With some difficulty, Aria returns to the room, and the two continue onward down the hallway…

…

Roughly twenty minutes later, in the auxiliary building…

Straf and Cycelia emerge out of the corner into the dim hallway. Straf looks above, immediately spots a large gap between the lamps levitating above, and lazily pushes the lamp upward. It briefly floats up tilted sideways before righting itself, and stops off the centerline with the rest.

「Okay, there we go…」

Straf shrugs, and continues walking towards the demonology study.

「Straf, the lamp isn't aligned properly…」

「Meh, who cares?」

Cycelia stops to look at the lamp while he places his hands back in his pockets.

「Straf! Professor Aria trusted us to do this!」

「Well, I'm teaching her an important lesson about placing your trust in the wrong people… And also making her think twice about bothering me to be her lackey next time」

Straf stops, and partially turns around to look at Cycelia while she's standing under the misaligned lamp.

She gently lets go of hers, floating it at her level, then tries to jump up and catch the one Straf released. Her large chest bounces and jiggles in her partially buttoned blazer, causing Straf to lift his brows.

「Straf!…」

She exclaims, angrily pouting at him with her dainty fists clenched at her sides. Straf rolls his eyes, and approaches the lamp with a large sigh out of his nose. With his hands in his pockets, he looks at it directly from underneath, pulls his hands out, hops up, and lightly pats the side of the glass enclosing it, sending it floating sideways.

「There. Happy now?」

He asks, spreading his arms. Cycelia looks at it, taking a few steps around it.

「…A little more. Just a little.」

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

She says, fluttering her long eyelashes at him. He glances aside in frustration as his shoulders slump, and his eyes return to the lamp with his mouth scrunched to the side. He hops up again, and taps the side of the lamp with his fingers. It floats sideways again, appearing perfectly in-line with the rest.

「There. If they want it done better than this, they better do it themselves.」

Straf says, and places his hands back in his pockets. Cycelia examines the lamp again, and happily nods, then hugs her lamp hovering nearby to her chest again.

「It's fine now.」

She says with a warm smile, and the two continue towards the door at the end.

「There, dump yours over here and let's go pester that asshole for a few minutes. I've still got a few rooms I want to check out.」

Straf points his finger at the next dark gap.

「No! It has to be symmetrical, Straf! You placed one right at the start, so it makes more sense if I place one at the end!」

Cycelia protests, pouting as the darkness vanishes from in front of her in a blue glow shining from her lamp.

「What does it matter?… This fucking thing ignores lights if it feels like it anyway…」

Straf rolls his eyes, and approaches closer to the door with the attached plaque.

「Maybe I'll ask the professor where he wants it?… I think it'd be best if it was in front of his door, it's dark in here-」

Cla-clack…

Cycelia glances upwards and side as she thinks, standing behind Straf as he's holding the door handle. A loud noise of a lock mechanism echoes out.

「Hm?」「Huh?…」

Straf and Cycelia utter out, both equally confused and surprised.

「…Did the prick just lock his door?」

Straf asks, and pushes down on the door handle.

Crrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkk…

A squeal of an extremely rusty hinge comes from behind Cycelia. She blinks at the darkness in the doorway, tilting her head.

「Weird, if it wasn't his door, then what was it?…」

Straf thinks out loud, cracking the demonology door partially open.

Cycelia peeks into the dark stairway, and shines the light down the steps to take a better look.

「Eh?…」

She tilts her head in confusion. The emergency lamp's light is weaker than the rest, and it shines just far enough for her to be able to see vague shapes. A jagged, irregular formation lying in one corner of the earthen room, and something else resembling a human lying in the other corner.

「Straf, is that-?」

She calls out to Straf for his attention, and her confused emerald eyes briefly flick to him. Her gaze returns to the bottom of the stairs the next instant.

Thud!

Straf slams the demonology door shut when he senses the ominous presence behind him, and snaps his eyes to Cycelia.

「Huh?-」

She blinks once, looking at the shifting black shape standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at her.

「Lia!!-」

Straf shouts with his eyes wide open as he recognizes the stairwell. She blinks again, and the dark shape is right in front of her, pointing its sharp arm at her face.

「Ahh!!」

Stumbling backwards, she shouts and falls over. Her lamp gently bounces off the floor and stops just behind her, floating a little above her chestnut head. Her emerald-green eyes stare in terror at the wraith standing frozen, still pointing its arm at the space she was standing at. Straf activates his [Contextual Time Perception] to its limit, and his gaze briefly darts around the scene as he remains unmoving. He lowers the acceleration factor to the previous safest known limit, lunging towards Cycelia as she's sitting on the ground frozen in time.

As his hands are about to reach her, he lowers it further, and scoops her up into his arms.

BOOM!

The landscape in front of Cycelia's eyes shifts suddenly as a thunderous boom echoes out in the hallway. Her vision is occupied mostly by Straf's serious face, and his sharply focused eyes. The rest of what she can see is the mostly dim hallway past him, tilted sideways 90 degrees, with the wraith still frozen in the open doorway, and the magic lamp she lost hold of hovering near the ground.

From the brief glimpse of what she can comprehend, Straf is standing on the wall.

Fwoom!

Cycelia then feels a massive acceleration jolt her into Straf's chest, and a powerful wind scatters her chestnut hair, trailing it behind him. Blurred doors speed past them as they fly just beneath the magic lamps. Straf minutely shifts Cycelia in his arms, and begins rotating in the air as his rocket-like leap loses speed before the end of the hallway.

Twap-tssssssssshhhhhhh…

He lands on his feet, and begins sliding backwards with Cycelia still cradled in his arms. The wraith emerges from the distant corner, and starts speeding towards them. When Straf slides to a full halt, he abruptly drops Cycelia to her feet, and nudges her in the direction of the foyer at the junction.

「Go, get out of here.」

Straf says, pushing her further as he's facing the speeding wraith.

「Should I tell someone-!?」

「Just get the fuck out of the building!」

Straf shouts at her, and her head perks up in surprise. Cycelia then nods and begins sprinting towards the foyer. Straf turns his eyes back to the wraith, and looks at the lamps floating above it. A blue orb materializes in front of him, and a narrow ray of blue light shoots down the hallway. With perfect precision, it impacts the magic gem within the lamp's glass housing. Its blue light briefly turns white, and becomes immensely bright.

Boom!

The gem powering the lamp violently explodes into an uncontrollable magic reaction, taking out a sizable chunk of the floor and the wall, filling the hallway with smoke and ripping the doors at the sides out with their hinges, sending them flying into their respective rooms. A mere second later, the wraith clears the smoke.

「Tsk.」

Baring his clenched teeth, Straf clicks his tongue in immense frustration. Another blue orb appears in front of him.

Boom!

The blue beam impacts another lamp just as the wraith crosses right underneath its shadow. The explosion once again rumbles the entire Academy, disintegrating more chunks of the building and shattering more doors.

The wraith slides out of the smoke again, seemingly unbothered. Straf lets out a frustrated groan, and another orb appears.

Boom!… Boom!.. Boom!!… BOOM!… BOOM!!…

The explosions keep ripping through the halls, sending gusts of powerful wind through the hallway, which doesn't disturb even a single hair on his head. The dark shape continues sliding closer and closer.

「Pure mana, huh?…」

Straf utters out, and thinks for a split second. He feels a gritty, sand-like texture in his hand. He looks at it, and there is a large pile of brilliantly shining pile of rainbow-colored dust of solid mana.

「How's this!?」

He shouts as he flings it in the direction of the wraith. The rainbow dust cloud scatters through the air, hovering to a stop as the particles slow just like the magic lamps. When the wraith slides into the very first particles, it slows down. Its form contorts and shifts to squeeze past them, as if they were an impassable obstacle, but ultimately the mana dust only acts as magic caltrops.

「Tsk… Well, this will either work, or the old man's going to get mad!…」

Straf exclaims as another blue orb materializes before him, just as the shadowy shape has made its way into the middle of the dust cloud.

BOOMMMmmmm!!…

When the beam reaches the first particles, they react like the magic gems and violently explode, quaking the stone floor beneath Straf's feet. The wooden doors behind him creak as the very building itself shakes violently, and a large portion of the ceiling collapses into a pile of rubble, scattering smoke a few tones darker than the Academy's walls everywhere.

「Did that do it?…」

Straf thinks out loud, relaxing a little out of his combat-ready stance after a few seconds of silence. A dark silhouette appears within the smoke.

「'Fcourse not, for fuck's sake!…」

He shouts out, and the wraith zaps out of the smoke, lunging at Straf with its arm stabbing away at him. He jumps out of the way, opposite of where Cycelia ran. He leaps backwards again, gaining distance.

《Come on, take the bait, you little fucker…》

Straf thinks, glaring at the wraith. It recovers from its whiffed stab, and once again begins sliding towards him in complete silence.

《Right!… Now how do I deal with this fucking thing!? More explosions!?》

He turns and sprints through the hallway. Just as he reaches the corner, he takes a peek at the wraith and sees Damian and Tisha at the other side, far in the distance.

《What are they doing here?- Doesn't matter! Be useful for once, go fucking tell someone!》

Straf clicks his tongue, and scatters more mana dust behind himself as he runs.

「Wha-? Was that Straf!? Is that it!?」

Damian asks Tisha with huge eyes as he sees the wraith disappear beyond the distant corner.

BOOM!

Another explosion sounds out, and brown smoke floods out from the other end of the hallway.

FWOOP!

A powerful shockwave hits them both, knocking them off their feet. They drop their magic lamps, and they are blown with the wind more than a few paces away.

「…What the fuck.」

Damian utters out, staring at the brown haze in the distance.

「…That was mana dust explosion, I'm sure of it. Neela used it at our entrance exam.」

Tisha remarks as she jumps up to her feet with a serious expression on her face.

「We can't fight that fucking thing! Did you see how fast it was!?」

「I know it's fast. It was coming for me. There's no chance we can fight it alone, at least.」

She replies to Damian as he's panicking and pointing in the general direction.

Boom!

Another explosion sounds out, albeit more distant, and Damian stands up as the gentle gust blows past them, pushing the lamps further away.

「There's no way we can fight it at all! Let someone else do it!-」

He shouts, and takes a few steps back towards where they came from. Tisha nods her golden head.

「Yeah, that's my plan. We need to get Aria and the rest, there's no way Straf can handle it alone. Let's go.」

She says, and runs past him, abandoning the magic lamps as they hover at feet-level…