Zora knew very well what he was looking at. He’d learned all about the infamous systems and their ‘status screens’ back when he was a student at this very academy.
Year Zero, the year of the Great Descent—when the armies of giant mutated bugs known as the 'Swarm' first appeared from rifts in the sky over sixty years ago, humanity struggled to repel them. They multiplied too quickly, their numbers were too overwhelming, and they were individually powerful to boot. Their claws were sharp like no ordinary metal in the world, their chitins were tougher than their hardiest shields, and their flesh and blood were pure magic. When consumed, humans could mutate and gain the abilities of the bug they devoured, but at great costs; too much flesh consumed would sap away at their humanity, eventually, uncontrollably turning them into insects themselves. Emilia was one such case. It simply wasn't possible for humans to fully control the mutations and abilities they could obtain from devouring bugs.
... That was, until Year Thirty-Three, when the first 'Swarmsteel Systems' were crafted by legendary smiths in the far east.
Forged out of the flesh and blood of the bugs they sought to steal power from, the systems gave humans 'Insect Classes' depending on the type of system they ingested. If a human consumed a butterfly-shaped butterfly system class, they'd unlock the abilities and mutations of a specific butterfly. If a human consumed a beetle-shaped beetle system class, they'd unlock the abilities and mutations of a specific beetle. No longer did consuming insect flesh mutate humans uncontrollably. As long as the human in question had a system, they'd never lose their humanity, and consuming insect flesh would instead give them 'points' to manually increase their physical attributes and unlock more class-specific mutations with.
The systems and the insect classes gave humanity the chance to fight back.
But though it'd been a decade since all sorts of systems with all sorts of insect classes began mass-production across mankind's final continent, most humans were still without a system. People still needed to be physically and biologically 'suited' for the insect class they were about to receive—not being able to survive the 'system integration' because of weakness, frailty, sickness, or just biological incompatibility was a rather common but unfortunate occurrence—so people who had insect classes included most trained soldiers in major battlefronts and most wandering bug-slayers who fought for hire, but civilians and commoners like him?
He’d never thought he’d get an insect class, much less survive the integration so easily.
----------------------------------------
[Class: Magicicada]
[T1 Core Mutation Unlocked: Resilin Tymbal]
[Brief Description: Your words can become reality]
----------------------------------------
Still kneeling, he squinted at the status screen next to his head and tried to swipe at it in a daze, but his hand merely passed through the screen. It was just a projection, after all.
… ‘Magicicada’ class, huh.
Gritting his teeth, he looked at the old mage and gave the man a quiet prayer. He’d never been particularly close with any of the mages who guarded the academy all year round, but he did know the fifty or so of them were the last ‘Magicicada Mages’ in the entire world—nobody, not even themselves, knew how to construct their system classes anymore. The first magicicada systems were crafted two decades ago, but the blueprints to replicate them were lost and destroyed when the mages had to evacuate from the far-eastern continent in a hurry. Just as well, given they couldn't just pass their systems down to younger generations because humans of this continent weren't able to survive the system integration, their lot has been a rare, ageing, dying breed for the better part of two decades.
But he'd survived the integration quite breezily.
Why?
How?
But whatever reason it was, there was a good chance he was the youngest Magicicada Mage in the world right now, and... as far as stories and rumours went, there was also no chance he didn’t know what their most infamous ability was.
‘Resilin Tymbal’. He touched his throat and felt chitin rings forming around it. No doubt about it; if he looked into a mirror, he’d see a black mark around his neck as though he’d been hung on a noose. The tier one core mutation of the magicicada class: the ability to cast ‘spells’ with simple words and sentences.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury to mull about his integration survival immediately. Emilia groaning next to him yanked him back to reality, and then he heard the once-distant sounds now terrifying close to them: a hundred giant legs skittering across the earth outside the broken wall, barging straight through the gates of the academy.
They were fast approaching, and he had to get out of the language arts building now.
“... Wake up, Emilia,” he whispered, shaking the girl gently as he snapped his head out the broken front door. There shouldn’t be anyone in the language arts building at this time of day, but there were loud, inhuman crashes in the corridors outside. His heart hammered in his chest. “We can’t stay here.”
Emilia muttered something incoherent under her breath, so he was about to flick her forehead when the loud crashes outside became a monstrous screech. If nothing else, that woke the drowsy Emilia up; she snapped upright, whirled to stare at the dark doorway in a panic, and before she could freak out and make any noise–
Zora dragged her behind the toppled teacher’s desk, swiped the mage’s bloody wand off the ground as he did, and pressed its sharp tip to his lips.
“Silence,” he whispered, and his voice took on a tangible, physical form. The sound wave rippled from his lips to the tip of his wand, then swirled around with a thrumming shimmer until he tapped Emilia’s face with it.
The sound wave wrapped around her face in a thin film, and when she opened her mouth to say something, no voice came out. She was ‘silenced’ in every sense of the word—and so was he, as he clenched his jaw and tried to calm his heart pounding against his ribs.
A few strides away from them, over the teacher’s desk they were taking cover behind, was a giant bug poking its head through the doorway. He could see its moonlit reflection from a shard of glass lying next to him: a dread-inspiring giant butterfly with two short azure wings, torn and bleeding, and its three-metre-long lollipop antennae were swishing slowly through the classroom. It was probing for children it could suck the blood out of.
The small hairs on Emilia’s neck lifted, and she tried to throw her little antennae over the table to get a proper look of the bug. He had to physically press her antennae down to prevent her from doing so, but by the Great Makers’ good name, she was strong as all hell. He ended up having to flick her forehead to get her to stay down, and if it weren’t for the ‘silence’ spell he’d casted on her, she probably would’ve asked what he was doing out loud.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Don’t look. He shushed her, clenching his jaw, hoping his thoughts would reach hers. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t make a single. Sound.
“...”
So the two of them sat there, backs pressed against the table until he eventually heard the giant butterfly losing interest. He waited ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then thirty seconds—it wasn’t until he couldn’t even hear it crashing and bumbling through the narrow corridors that he sighed, twirling the sound wave spell off Emilia’s face with his wand.
Emilia opened her mouth slightly, but no sound came out. It was like she didn’t even realise she could start talking again, so it was only when he started rubbing her head to comfort her that tears started welling up in her eyes; he reached forward and pulled her into his chest, letting her hug him, her arms trembling as she breathed hard to calm herself down.
For his part, he kept on rubbing her head as he scowled at the empty doorway behind them.
What does that physician always say about short-winged butterflies?
They can't fly because they’re born with unusually short wings, but in exchange, they have extremely sensitive veins in their wings that let them hear even the tiniest of squeaks.
As Emilia coughed and hiccuped and tried to steady her breaths, he looked at the simple metal wand in his hand.
If he recalled the basic workings of his main ability correctly, his ‘spells’ were the sound waves of the words he spoke. The wands the mages used were no mere decoration—by pressing it to his lips and casting the spell onto the wand, he could ‘store’ the magical sound wave and then whip it in the direction he wanted to cast his spell.
That was all he really knew of his abilities, though. He’d have to experiment if he wanted to know more.
“... Amadeus Academy’s foremost protocol during a Swarm infestation is evacuating all students to the dormitory building,” he whispered, peeling Emilia gently off him and looking her in the eye as he held her body still; he did everything he could to distract her from the mage’s corpse behind her. “We’re going to the dorm. Do you think you can stand and walk there with me?”
Emilia was still shaking slightly as a bead of sweat fell from her brow, but she managed to give him a small nod.
“Good,” he said softly, rising to his feet and picking her up by the armpits as he did. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Maybe your mutations let you regenerate faster than usual, but–”
“What’d you just do, Mister Zora?” she asked, looking quizzically at the wand dangling loosely in his hand. “I tried to speak, but… but I couldn’t. Was that magic?”
He blinked. “That’s right,” he murmured, taking her hand and escorting her to the doorway. He peeked his head out and looked left and right, seeing pitch-black darkness on both ends; the gas lamps had all been extinguished. “You may now call me Lord Fabre, the Thousand-Tongue Mage of homeroom 2-A. From now on, whatever I say becomes reality, so trust me when I say we’ll get out of this safely. Just do whatever I tell you to do.”
Emilia nodded, breathing softly as she did. “O… Okay. But... um, how did you take my voice away, though?”
“...”
It’d be reckless leaving the classroom before he understood the general mechanics of his new ability, so, throwing a glance at the clock above the doorway, he looked down at Emilia and gave her a wink.
“Like this,” he said. “Heed my words, and be silent until I falter.”
This time, he made it a point not to cast his spell onto his wand, instead letting the physical sound wave diffuse around the two of them… and it was like he’d put them inside a small bubble, a thin film of sound waves shimmering around them like a barrier.
The silence was louder than usual.
Frowning, he pointed his wand to the ceiling and directed Emilia’s attention there, and he read her lips mouthing ‘what’s there?’—but, same with the ‘silence’ spell he’d cast on her face before, her voice didn’t come out. He tried saying something in response, but his voice was mute too. They were in a silent bubble.
So if I don’t aim my spell in any particular direction, it’ll simply diffuse everywhere?
Maybe I can aim it even without a wand if I articulate ‘silence’ in a different way, but for now, if I want to dispel the bubble, I suppose I just have to…
He poked the edge of the bubble with his hand and twirled the sound waves away, making the spell fizzle with a little whoosh. Emilia’s shoes started squeaking again. He could hear loud crashes and shouting outside again; he hadn’t even realised it until just now, but the silence spell worked both ways, in and outside the bubble.
It hurts when I use that vibrating voice, though.
Assuming both the effects and the duration of the spells will be stronger and longer if I speak in a louder voice, the inverse should also be true.
If I whisper my spells instead, I’ll strain my throat less.
Touching the little protrusion on the back of his neck, he opened his status screen and took a glance at it.
----------------------------------------
[// STATUS]
[Name: Zora Fabre]
[Class: Magicicada]
[BloodVolume: 4.9/5.0 (98%), Strain: 32/499 (6%)]
[Unallocated Points: 0]
[Strength: 1, Speed: 1, Dexterity: 1, Toughness: 1, Perceptivity: 2, Strain Limit: 499]
[// MUTATION TREE]
[T1 Core Mutation | Resilin Tymbal]
{T1 Branch Mutation | ???}
[T2 Core Mutations | Acute Tympana | Hollow Abdomen] 50P
{T2 Branch Mutations | ??? | ???}
----------------------------------------
He grimaced as he rubbed his throat, noting how immediately sore his throat was after casting a mere two spells—and they weren’t even particularly powerful or long-range or wide-area spells. Of course, there was the entire rest of his status screen he was currently ignoring, but… there was little point in engaging with it right now. He didn’t have any ‘points’ to spend on anything, so his best course of action right now would be to get Emilia to the dorm.
Hopefully, at this time of the day, the students in his class were all already tuckered in, preferably watched over by a teacher who was keeping the dorm gates on lock.
“... Alright,” he said, putting a confident smile on his face as he waved the status screen away. “We’re going to the dorm. Wanna see me do something really cool again, though?”
Emilia’s face lit up. “Yeah! Is it more magic?”
“Mhm. Watch this.”
Pressing his wand to his lips, he spoke a soft ‘silence’ on both her shoes and his, and only once he paced a few steps back and forth to make sure he made no sounds while walking did he nod at Emilia.
“Don’t panic, don’t run around, and just focus on the paths ahead of us, okay?” he said, gripping her hand tight as he glanced out the doorway. “I know your moth senses are very keen, but try not to ‘look’ around you too much. It’s… going to be quite messy out there.”
She squeezed his hand in response, giving him one more uneasy nod, and seeing her put on a brave face was his cue to step up as well.
Hand in hand, the two of them stepped out of the classroom, and he immediately pulled her down the right corridor.
… There was still one spell he immediately wanted to try casting, though.
“Heed my words,” he whispered, pressing his wand to his lips, “rewind time.”