Morning light grew increasingly tender by the lake, where the tranquil façade of a posh lakeside home was shattered.
"Bang!"
The wooden door was blown off its hinges—its unremarkable life ended by the boot of the man leading the charge. The black-armored knight withdrew his foot, signalling his ten-man squad to storm the young lady's quarters.
"Report! She's not here!" After a thorough upending of the modest-sized abode, this was the update from his subordinates.
"I can see that," the squad leader replied, his tone suggesting he was accustomed to his men’s... prudence?
He swung a large gauntleted hand, signaling retreat. "We're too late. Move out."
"Yes, sir!" The line of black-armored knights answered in unison, marching neatly past the servants they pushed aside, making their way out under the gaze of the remaining faculty and students.
Among the onlooking crowd of aristocratic students and their pedigreed teachers, speculation abounded. What trouble had the Duke of the West’s granddaughter stirred up to warrant the Black Guard coming for her personally?
"Silence! Nothing’s been confirmed. What kind of nobility gossips so shamelessly?" A calm but compelling voice hushed everyone along the lake. Even the most indifferent students lowered their heads, not daring to cross that ever-smiling but fearsome headmaster.
Vincent, the enigmatic provost of the esteemed Heracles Academy for the nobility, his surname and level a mystery. As for his age, it remained a perpetual enigma among the campus' top ten unsolved mysteries.
After all, the current students' parents, and even their grandparents, had been taught by the very same man, making for a generation-spanning riddle and rich fodder for campus lore.
Rumors ran wild: was he a vampire? Possessed of eternal youth? A comrade to heroes of old? Such tales circulated endlessly among the bored student body, never quite seriously but always there.
But gossip couldn’t disguise the truth: this elusive, white-bearded man was no easy customer. Even the students’ noble parents seemed oddly perturbed when speaking of him.
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Digging for details would reveal that among each new class, a few thorns always emerged. The upperclassmen, seasoned veterans by then, would watch these clueless newcomers with a mix of pity and foreboding, like turkeys oblivious to their impending Thanksgiving fate.
Faculty and staff, meanwhile, seemed to ignore the troublemakers' antics... until those very troublemakers disappeared.
Overnight, the once bold and brash settled into meekness as if possessed by an entirely different spirit. The details of that transformational night were never spoken of, but slip-ups occurred—confessions during drunken stupors, spells of compulsion, or ingestion of strange potions revealed fragments of a recurring nightmare that bound their deepest fears to their past transgressions.
And sometimes, students claimed to have seen a shadowy figure—their black-clothed headmaster—passing the windows of the unruly ones that night.
Thus emerged a refined batch of aristocrats. Maybe not the handiest bunch, but at least not heaven-defyingly troublesome—fitting for the Heracles Academy, a beacon of hope tasked with nurturing useful talents for the kingdom while branding society's bad apples with a healthy fear to keep them in check.
The shaken students sheepishly retreated to their cubbies, longing only for dreams devoid of headmasters.
Among them, an ordinary-looking old man mingled unnoticed with the staff. Observing the students' dispersal, he swept his voluminous robe and vanished into the crowd, a faint clinking sound fading with him.
---
On a quiet country trail south of the capital, two commoners made their way, the younger—a girl—seemed to be bulging around her trousers in a rather peculiar fashion.
"Anne, are we really okay just running off like this?" Eschell furtively glanced back down the path for what must've been the umpteenth time, voicing her concern.
"Miss, this is your fourth time asking that in half an hour," Anne replied, the patience in her otherwise impeccable maid's voice wearing thin. Eschell was different from the usual noble scions—never had she wielded her ducal heritage to bully others.
With a gentle sigh, she reassured, "Don't worry, Miss. Didn't we spot the Black Guard earlier? They won't find us."
"But that's just it, I worry! I'm not exactly the spitting image of a commoner in disguise."
"You're quite right, Miss, which is why I'd suggest you shed that nightgown sooner rather than later. A regular commoner wouldn't be sporting anything but their legs stuffed into their trousers this season—not even in the capital."
"Not even in the capital, hmm?" Eschell wondered, batting her innocent eyes.
"Even capital commoners are commoners, Miss," Anne responded with a soft but definitive sigh.
"Alright then," Eschell muttered, but then perked up, "What happened to Curtis, anyway?"
Curtis Raventa, a lad slightly younger than Eschell, likewise bore dual status as a student and a hostage—the grandson of the Duke of the North.
"A month ago, an urgent message came from the North. Curtis's mother took gravely ill—they've called him back home," Anne disclosed with prepared calmness.
Stopping in her tracks, Eschell fell silent before finally murmuring, "He ran off... without me?"