[Royal Capital Alavia, Most Divine Kingdom of Alterya]

(23rd, Black Sea Moon (VII), 644 ASY)

“Will he even come?” Ashe mutters to herself as she looks through report after report. She had been one of the three founders of White Dawn but has since left the group after an argument that they had almost turned violent. However, she still kept close ties to the group and still helped them out from time to time. This is Ashe Voltmare, former great mage of the White Dawn. She can be described as a boy in a girl’s body and acts very un-women-like. She has crimson eyes with cat-like pupils, tan skin, and dark brown hair. Perhaps the most interesting part about her is that while she is insanely skilled in nearly all magics, she has no mana of her own. It is still a mystery to the public how she can use magic so well yet not even have mana. It is not a mystery to 2 other people, however. To be completely honest to herself, she is scared. Tensions have been rising with the radically and fanatically secularizing nation of The Dalycon Union to the southwest. Against all odds, the same devil that had caused the breakup of the founders of White Dawn and the separation of their powers (That she had facilitated to prevent the power of said demon) had grown his country from an insignificant county to an absolute powerhouse. Even still, according to what little information that she could get out of her spies before they were found, killed, or otherwise unable to fulfill their missions, they seem to be using tactics and weapons that were foreign to this world. There were only three people that could be expected to know these tactics and weapons, and neither she nor Tyson had ever stepped foot in the Dalycon Union. The other one is dead. Could he still be alive after 5 years? Impossible. The most likely reason is that the devil Xacont had used magic to extract knowledge from his mind before killing him. Just thinking about him brings back old and unwanted memories. She sighs and closes her eyes and succumbs to her memories, unable to hold them back.

A hall of white illuminated by rectangles of light with doors of warm brown greets her as she steps out of the doorway. This was the last day of her sophomore year at college. For some unknown reason, she had decided to minor in history. Was it because of Daniel’s endless pestering about how nobody understood any references that he made? Or was it simply out of sheer curiosity? Either way, she certainly regretted it now. While she certainly had much better grades than Tyson who had all but given up at this point, it was nowhere close to what she could be at and worse than Daniel’s impeccable grades. Daniel is a psychology and neurology double major with a history minor. This seems like a hellish load to do yet somehow Daniel pulls it off with great grades to boot. Probably he spends every waking hour studying and only lets loose on summer weekends. Meanwhile, Tyson goes to practically every party imaginable, and while he was a great student in his pre-college and freshman years, he has completely fallen apart now. He is barely scraping by in his physics major. Tyson comes strolling down the hallway.

“Hey, you finished with all exams?” He asks.

“Yeah, just waiting for Daniel to finish the 9th check of his answers,” Ashe sighs.

“What, and not his essay?” Tyson asks, confused.

“Not everyone forgot that and had to scramble to do it right after the test…” Ashe says through gritted teeth.

“That’s fair. Still, what’s taking him so long? He usually finishes within three hours,” Tyson asks.

“This is the final test of the year, Tyson. It’s crazy that he wouldn’t do extra checks,” Ashe stares, dumbfounded.

“Well, what do we do, wait for him? He’s the one with any keys seeing as we lose them too often,” Tyson responds, not even noticing the hint of annoyance in Ashe’s voice.

“Well yeah, what else are we going to do?” Ashe says, getting out her phone. Tyson does the same and the pair of them wait outside the room, wait for their overcautious friend to finish. Sometimes professors come over to ask what they are doing, but they respond that they can’t go anywhere without their keys that Daniel had confiscated from them. After three more hours, Daniel finally leaves the room, satisfied. He has an extremely short yet somehow full head of black hair and black eyes. He is starkly Asian with eyes that, even with glasses, look small. He has a face a calm and a think smile.

“Hello. Waiting for someone?” He asks looking at Ashe and Tyson.

“You know that answer already, Daniel. Don’t even try to make that joke,” Tyson snarls.

“Wow there, calm down. I won’t let you have the keys because you've lost them at least 30 times last year. In fact, I have calculated how much time you two had cost the three of us last year. It came out to 4 and a half days," 

"Well, that doesn't mean that you can just take them from us. We have our own things to do,"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Yeah, but what's more important? Your social life which you can simply reschedule, or my education, which not only costs much more than your social events, but is stuck in an unchanging schedule?"

"Shut your mouth, virgin! You'll never have a crush, nevermind a girlfriend!"

"Why would I want one now? She'll just take more time off of my already very full hands,"

"Oh shut the hell up. You're just compensating,"

"For what? You have to be clear with these things,"

"You know what I'm talking about!"

Ashe watches on as the 2 boys bicker about. The 2 of them never stop arguing, even if there were other people nearby.

"Hey, can we please get going already?" Ashe interrupts.

"Hmmm? Yeah, I finally don't have to worry about my GPA for at least a month," Daniel turns his head to look at her.

"Good. Come to the mixer on Wednsday. We need to get you to be more social," Tyson smiles.

"How can they make up so fast?" Ashe thinks to herself.

Slowly, Ashe pulls herself out of her memories. Sighing, she puts down the stack of reports and looks around the room. It is a massive bureaucratic center, with people coming in and out, rows upon rows of desks with people. This is the headquarters of the Magio Cantoria. If the White Dawn is the face of the three heroes, then the Magio Cantoria is the underlying bureaucratic and administrative center that makes sure that the combat-oriented White Dawn can fight at top strength. This had been the way for almost 6 years since Daniel had gotten into another argument with Tyson. Even in this world, the two would bicker about everything from which inn to sleep in, to whether a dragon had a penis or not. It was usually because Tyson did something rash that earned him Daniel's ire. However, that time, Daniel had done something unthinkable to Tyson. He had used an ancient artifact to summon up undead servants. To Daniel, this was a logical option. 

"The Undead don't need either rest or pay, they are the perfect being to work as mindless laborers! Don't worry, I'll replace them with machines later on. Then again, the Undead are basically machines..." He had said. However, to Tyson, the Undead were dangerous and couldn't be trusted.

"We know nothing about the nature of these beings. We should study them before usage!" Tyson had said in response to Daniel's remarks. 

From there, they had sparked an argument that split the, at the point, 100ish member White Dawn in half. Well, not cleanly in half. Most people sided with Daniel on the issue since most of them had been scouted out by Daniel himself and recruited that way. They respected his decisions more than Tyson and Ashe’s. Ashe had sided with Tyson if only to reign in the influence that Daniel had over the organization. With 2 of the founders on one side, they forced Daniel to conceded. Thus, while it was extremely unpopular within the organization, the Magio Cantoria and Legico Logistvium, headed by Ashe and Daniel respectively, were split from White Dawn. The White Dawn would be the military branch, Magio Cantoria the administrational and informational branch, while the Legico Logistvium the logistical branch. This striped Daniel from much of his power as both Tyson and Ashe were primarily fighters and never went too deep into the administrative side of the organization. However, Daniel never stopped diving into the unholy and heretical. This sparked even more arguments among the three of them. Finally, after summoning a devil named Xacont, Tyson and Daniel got into a fight that had caused Daniel to suddenly resign and disappear, without as much as a replacement. Because of this, over half of the members of the three now separate branches left as they held a sense of loyalty to Daniel and not to the group as a whole. This included 90 of the original 100 that was a part of White Dawn at the beginning of Tyson and Daniel’s fallout. Ashe remembers the lengths she had to go to just have the Magio Cantoria remain functional, as about 3/4th of the Magio Cantoria was going to leave at the beginning, but she managed to get that number down to only half. About three years after Daniel left, the same devil that he had summoned, Xacont,  announced that he had killed the "Grand Strategist Daniel Zao." This had massively impacted morale within the three organizations, the Legico Logistvium especially. Today, while the White Dawn far surpasses the name and reputation it had before Daniel's departure and death when it came to combat power, they had lost the vast majority of veterans and experienced fighters after Daniel's departure and the Legico Logistvium's understandable reluctance to work with the other 2 branches had made getting even food to their members a nightmare. Furthermore, the fiasco was widely publicized and heavily dropped recruitment. Thus, not only has the organization lost most of its most capable fighters but more worryingly stagnated.

That’s what she would have had to deal with if not for the recent hostilities between the Altaryian Kingdom and the Dalycon Union, who is lead by Daniel’s murderer Xacont, which had culminated a few weeks ago when the general of the 4th Royal Army, Ganbast the Zealot, went out and raided the Dalyconian province of Unbrecon. Not only did the 4th Army get massacred by the Dalycon 15th Legion on the return trip, but the 15th Legion retaliated by sieging and briefly holding three fortress cities, which included the provincial capital of Ackihan, which was only a week’s trip on foot away from Alavia, the Royal Capital. The 15th Legion had returned to Dalycon, but many voices within Alavia glamor for retaliation, while just as many beg the King for peace. She had set up the meeting between the three heads to discuss the Ganbast Crisis, as it had been named. As she sighs again, a small watch on her left wrist starts beeping. She smiles and turns to her right.

“Hey, Milinoda?” Ashe says to the girl to her side.

“Yeah? Did he finally get there?” The Elvish asks in response.

“Yep. Took Tyson long enough,” Ashe sighs. “I’ll be back by the afternoon. Don’t get swamped in work, alright?” 

“Don’t worry, we just went through a hiring spree,” Milinoda smiles.

“Alright, see you later!” Ashe nods as she slaps the watch and her body glows white for a moment, then disappears.