In one of the classrooms, nearing free period…

Damian is staring out the window, barely paying attention, deep in thought. The lecture continues, with or without him paying mind to it. Something very light hits him in the head, barely registering as an impact.

He turns his head around, and finds a ball of crumpled paper on the ground. He squints at it in confusion, as Straf isn't attending the class today. He looks at the girls, and finds Tisha waving her arms about.

「What are you, twelve?…」

Damian shakes his head in disbelief at the likely perpetrator. She looks indignant and upset, scrunching her mouth heavily at him while he turns his head away.

Donnnnnnnggggggg… Gonnnnnnnnggggggg… Donnnnnnnggggg…

The heavy bell tolls, and class ends. When Damian exits the classroom, Tisha latches onto his side like a piranha while Neela and Cycelia catch up.

「Hey! How dare you ignore me!?」「Tsk…」

He clicks his tongue as she angrily asks.

「I didn't. I am well aware you are mentally a child.」

Damian nonchalantly scoffs as the rest join them on their way to the cafeteria.

「Yes you did!… You didn't read my message!」

Tisha exclaims with her fists clenched, grimacing angrily at him.

「What message?」

Damian furrows his brows, looking at her pretty face stained with anger.

「The message I threw at you, idiot! Do you have any idea how hard it was to hit you!? It took fifteen tries!」

She explains, clenching her teeth in fury as she waves her arms around in exasperation.

「Wait, that was a message? I thought you were just trying to annoy me…」

「Of course it was a message!」

Tisha lets out a frustrated huff, and crosses her arms.

「…Well? What'd you write?」

He asks, briefly glancing at her.

「…I was asking if you're going with Straf tonight after all.」

She says, a lot calmer and sounding almost hesitant.

「…No. Too risky, and I doubt I'd be of much help」

Damian admits, shrugging his shoulders.

「Good.」

Tisha quickly declares in an upbeat tone full of energy.

「Huh? Why? Were you afraid?」

Damian asks with a lightly amused smirk.

「Heh? Afraid? Of what?-」

With her fists on her hips, Tisha grins back with a smug expression on her face.

「Tisha was afraid something would happen to you.」「Neela!」

Neela chimes in, replying to Damian. Tisha's blue eyes widen in shock as her face snaps to her friend's slyly smiling face.

「Shut up, shut up, shut up! You're twisting my words!」

Tisha shouts at Neela, pointing at her. She has to lean back a little not to be poked in the face, or worse, the eyes.

「…Why would you be afraid of something happening to me?-」

Damian asks as his brows slowly rise.

「I'm not! Shut up, I'm not!… Neela took everything out of context!」

She shouts, cutting his question off before he can properly finish it. Huffing and puffing, she manages to calm down a little.

「I just thought that you seemed suicidal! I thought that there's something wrong with your head, idiot!」

Tisha angrily explains and turns her head away, crossing her arms with a huff.

「…I'm not suicidal.」

Damian calmly replies, staring dead ahead.

「Yeah? So why were you pushing yourself head-first into doing something stupid?」

She asks, slowly calming down as well.

「I thought it'd be a good idea to gather some experience.」

He shrugs as they turn a corner in the hallway.

「Experience for what?」

「Combat. The real deal, life or death.」「And you're not suicidal!?」

Damian nonchalantly replies, coaxing an immediately reaction out of Tisha.

「Of course not. I don't want to die yet.」

「Yet?… You sound like you plan to die soon.」

「I don't. I plan to live as long as I can.」

He denies Tisha's claim, and shrugs again.

「…As long as you can? You know normal people just don't think about dying much, right?」

Tisha asks, looking at Damian with a ridiculing expression, but her blue eyes are filled with concern.

「…Yeah. I'm not suicidal, I don't want to die, but that doesn't necessarily mean I won't. I just have to live with that.」

He spares a brief glance at her face before turning his eyes forward again.

「Yeah, that's how it usually goes… Is what I wanted to say, but there's something more going on, isn't there?」

She says, first with a dismissive tone, before letting out a sigh and shifting into a serious one to match her face.

「…I guess.」

Damian returns a noncommittal reply with a weak shrug of his shoulders.

「What is it then?」

Tisha asks, and waits for his answer.

「…None of your business.」

Thwack!

Tisha delivers a rough slap to the back of his head instead of continuing the back and forth.

「Ow!… What is your problem!?」

His angsty, edgy mystique immediately evaporates when he shouts at her in anger, clutching onto his head with both of his hands.

「Right back at you! Why don't you just tell me what's up!?」

She shouts back, clenching her fists. Students in the hallway look at them both as they cause a minor scene.

「Because what good will that do!?」

He asks, rubbing the back of his head as they glare at each other.

「You don't know, and I don't know either, so tell me!」

Tisha demands, pointing her finger in his face.

「Tsk… Not like you can help anyway!…」

Damian clicks his tongue, and turns away with a huff, continuing onward towards the cafeteria after the brief interruption. Neela and Cycelia look at each other, but decide to remain silent.

「Maybe I can! Now tell me or you're getting seconds before we even get to the cafeteria!」

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The northern princess threateningly raises her hand, drawing his wary eyes to it. Frustrated, he clicks his tongue again as he looks aside.

「…I'm going to join a mercenary army as a mage when I graduate. There, happy? Do you know any mercenary armies up north that need mages?」

Resigned, he replies after a moment of hesitation.

「…Why?」

Tisha asks in a confused tone as she slowly lowers her arm.

「Money! Why else!? I know, it's confusing that some people are poor!」

He mocks Tisha in anger, but she remains completely unfazed by the attempt to rile her up.

「…Are you stupid? You'll sign up to be a mercenary, when you could wait a few years and become a court mage somewhe-?」

She replies in utter disbelief, staring at him with now disdain in her eyes.

「I don't have a few years! I need to start making money as soon as I graduate! Wars are in higher demand than knowledge, sorry, but I didn't make the world like this!」

Damian shouts back, turning on his heel towards her, throwing his hands up in anger.

「…Why? Why are you in a rush?」

「Tsk… You keep asking the same fucking questions… What a pain…」

He grumbles in response to her question, shaking his head.

「…My sister is getting married. It's complicated. I need money now, not later. Now stop bothering me about it. I keep to myself, why do you keep prying into my life? Is yours that boring?」

Damian asks, glaring at her blue eyes before stomping onward. The girls all look at each other with troubled faces, and follow him to the cafeteria…

…

Roughly thirty minutes later, at the cafeteria…

Damian and Tisha have managed to simmer down after eating their meals, though the group struggled to maintain nonchalant straight faces when they overheard the kitchen workers discuss a food thief.

「Okay, time to study-」

「Go on without me, I have to deliver a letter.」

Damian stands up with Tisha, though he immediately sets out to leave, stacking his tray on her empty one.

「Hey! I'm not your garbage collector!」

Tisha says with her voice raised towards Damian's back.

「…And I'm not a mailman, yet here we are.」

He sighs out over his shoulder, shrugging, and continues towards the door. Tisha looks at the other two, and shrugs. They return the trays, and head for the library…

…

Just before the day's last bell, in one of the workshops…

Straf is fiddling with a skateboard-like plate of the same malleable metal he made the magic flashlight with. Attached below the plate are two rectangular shapes with channels carved into their bottoms. At the front and top of the skateboard-like plate, there is another rectangular box. The box at the front is open and filled with complex network of channels, some interconnecting, some not, some shallow, some not. He continues scraping the metal, and connects the bottom rectangles with a channel leading from the box at the top.

He grabs a small gem from the pile on the workbench, and inserts it into a slot almost custom-tailored for them in the front box. Most of the channels immediately light up on the plate, and it begins to hover on the desk, rather than levitate.

「Neat. Does it work?…」

Straf utters out, and pushes down on the hovering board. Despite his best efforts, it refuses to go down, only beginning to give way when he applies a significant amount of force.

「Nice. What about the controls?」

He says to himself, and begins rocking gem along with its slot like a joystick, back and forth, left and right. When he does so, some of the channels turn dark, and the others light up. The plate begins to accelerate in the directions he pushes the gem towards, but as he's restraining the board with his free arm it doesn't go anywhere, not for a lack of trying.

Gonnnnnnnggggg… Donnnnnnnnngggggg… Gonnnnnnnnnngggggggg…

「Oh well, good enough for today…」

Shrugging his shoulders, Straf scoops the gems and the plate into his [Portable Storage].

「Just in time too… Magic ticker tape next, I suppose…」

He rubs his chin on his way out of the workshop, absentmindedly heading out onto his patrol…

…

Late at night, in Cycelia's room…

In pitch blackness, Cycelia is lying in her bed, wide awake and trying to sleep for hours already.

「Nnnhh…」

She trashes about in her bed, unable to find a comfortable position. Though normally the cold would make it easier to sleep, it's far too cold for it to be comfortable, even with the blanket.

「Stupid window…」

She grumbles, looking at the relatively bright sky outside with her weary emerald eyes. While the sky is somewhat bright, the mountains in the background, as well as the portion of the Academy's roof that is visible are completely black. Cycelia lets out a sigh, and sits herself up. She takes a moment to look at the mountains' black silhouette, and turns her attention to the roof next.

「…Huh?」

She tilts her head when she notices an odd shape on the pointy, extremely slanted roof.

「Gargoyle?… No, can't be…」

While decorative gargoyles are nothing new to Cycelia, she is certain she didn't see any at any point during her stay at the Academy. She scoots over closer to the table, and grasp at something on the desk in the dark right next to the unlit oil lamp. After a few moments, she finally manages to find it. A cylindrical shape flared at one end, and slightly longer than both of her dainty hands put together when closed.

Click.

Cycelia turns Straf's magic flashlight on, and points the beam of light at the mystery gargoyle on the roof outside.

「Huh?…」

She utters out, staring at the back of a man in a cloak clutching onto the pointed roof. He turns his youthful face to her.

「Ahh!」

She shouts in panic as she sees shining red eyes glaring at her. The man suddenly winces in pain, covering his head with his hand and cloak. A small flame appears on his palm, and he loses grip, plummeting downwards. Cycelia stares at her window, frozen in sheer shock and confusion at the scene. She jumps out of her bed and runs for the door, not even bothering to put her boots on.

Click.

She turns the flashlight off as she runs for the stairwell, and heads upstairs as fast as her legs will allow her. She makes it to the headmaster's room in a mad dash, and looks around the empty office. She notices another door, and runs in.

「Headmaster! Headmaster, headmaster, headmaster!」

Cycelia utters out in panic towards the sleeping old man. She grabs onto his shoulders, and starts violently shaking him awake.

「Agh- Ugh- Ngh- Wha-!?…」

Corvus lets out a series of dazed grunts as he slowly opens his eyes and focuses them on Cycelia's panicked face.

「What?…」

「Vampire! Vampire, vampire! Outside my window!」

She exclaims as the still-dazed headmaster sits up on his bed, squinting at her.

「…Outside your window?」

He asks, sounding almost confused.

Click.

「Yes! I shined him with the shiny, and he fell!」

「Ack!…」

Cycelia waves the flashlight around, briefly flashing it into headmaster's face. He immediately recoils, wincing in pain as he rubs his eyes. He misses a few attempts to grab his glasses off the nearby nightstand, and eventually places them upon his nose. He stands up, putting his shoes on in a hurry.

「Go get Professor Aria and the rest of the younger professors. I will be with you momentarily.」

Corvus instructs her, and Cycelia silently nods back, and runs out of his room. With his shoes on, he lets out a fatigued sigh, and hurries out to follow her…

…

Twenty minutes later, outside Cycelia's window, far below at the ground level…

Aria and multiple other professors are fanned out, their heads swivel left and right in search for tracks or the threat. Corvus looks high up, then lowers his eyes to Cycelia's concerned face, now much calmer.

「…Are you absolutely certain this is where you saw him, Ms. Lia?」

Corvus asks in a calm tone, then turns his eyes to the lightly scorched grass nearby.

「…Yes. Sorry it took me so long-」

「No, no… You were very quick to report this, Ms. Lia. Vampires are simply extremely shifty creatures. Have you caught a good look of him?」

Cycelia apologetically bows her head, but Corvus quickly halts her, placing his hands on her blazer's shoulders.

「He was young… And a man. And he had a cloak. That's all I saw. And red eyes, obviously…」

Cycelia looks aside as she tries to recall the details, but the poor lighting conditions and the brief glimpse that she caught are not helpful.

「A cloaked young man… Indeed, that is not much to go on. However, I believe we are very lucky. He was likely searching for today's victims…」

Corvus nods his head, brushing through his beard as he warily looks up and down the Academy building. He notices the telltale figure of a tall man with his hands in his pockets approach.

「Straf… We've been waiting for you.」

The headmaster says, looking at him as he nonchalantly walks up to him and Cycelia.

「Almost caught him, huh?」

Straf asks, looking at the two.

「Not quite… But we were close. Ms. Lia and your tool have been of great help tonight.」

Corvus replies, and he points his hand at Cycelia beside him with a smile on his face.

「Really? You seriously hit him with the magitech? Science.」

Straf chuckles, grinning at Cycelia as he looks at the flashlight in her hands.

「Straf, I would like to buy this magic tool from you for the purposes of research-」

「Not for sale.」

Straf bluntly shoots down the old mage's offer, causing him much consternation as he furrows his bushy brows.

「Well, may you then give us a lecture on how to make-?」

「Read the fucking manual.」

With the same blunt tact, or lack thereof, Straf replies, staring at the headmaster with a tight-lipped grimace.

「Okay, Lia… From the beginning, what happened?」

Straf snaps his fingers, and points at Cycelia, waiting for her to fill him in on what he missed…