… One month.
It was both a quiet month and a long month.
The first reinforcements arrived at the academy five days after they noticed the distress coloured pheromone flares shooting up over the Wolkenkam Mountain Range, and they were De Balla Engineers from the Rampaging Hinterland Front in nothing short of a small marching army. When they came, they saw a ruined castle nestled atop a mesa, no way up, no way down. It took a day for them to construct three bridges north, southwest, and southeast of the academy, at which point they entered through the southwestern courtyard to notice all but one building had gone completely dark.
Fearing the worst, they rushed towards the centremost dorm building and knocked on the southwestern shelter gate.
Time flew by as the ‘Amadeus Academy Infestation’ became widespread news across the entire continent. No stone was left unturned, no detail left uncovered. Borough Inspectors from the Scorched Scarabs came to document the damages. Healers from the Nectarites came to assist with restorations. Writers from the Spinneret Society came to interview the survivors. All told, damages added up to thirty-one destroyed buildings, sixty-one dead mages, one hundred and thirty children, three hundred dead faculty and counting—and one Lesser Cicada God, burned and eviscerated from the inside-out.
Rather quickly, the story was twisted from that of ‘hopeless survival against the Swarm’ to one of ‘fiery triumph in impossible odds’. The Spinneret Society didn’t believe the surviving children at first, but it was incredibly difficult to dismiss the fact that the Swarmblood Aura… that the thick, concentrated killing pressure of a Lesser Insect God still remained in the castle, though it wasn’t lingering on any bug.
The children gave the writer four names. They put faces to those names. Those same names refused to entertain any writers from the Spinneret Society initially, but once thousands more people flooded into Amadeus Academy—representing warriors, emissaries, diplomats, and couriers from nearly every major faction on the continent—those names began to relax. They finally understood people from all across the continent were here to help them rebuild, to take care of the children, so when the Spinneret Society approached them to ask for more details, four names became only one.
Of the four names, three pointed at the one, and the moment the Spinneret Society laid eyes upon the man who was relaxing, but couldn’t—three emissaries, twelve couriers, fourteen writers, twenty healers, thirty-four inspectors, fifty-two warriors, froze and clammed up before the man’s killing pressure.
He was no bug, but his Swarmblood Aura was unmistakably that of ‘Fate Spinner’ Nona’s, youngest of the Magicicada Witch.
… For the first time in sixty-one years of humanity’s endless war against the Swarm, a Lesser Insect God had been killed by nothing short of a ragtag group of teachers and children, none of whom had any professional training with their insect classes.
It was both a quiet and a long month.
But the tides of war were changing, and the continent held its breath as they awaited the Thousand Tongue Mage’s next move.
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Dawn.
Eight in the morning.
It was exactly one month after the death of the Magicicada Witch that the ‘Sterngott Funeral’ was held in the academy’s southwestern courtyard. Banners of the Five-Pointed Star hung from every pillar, every archway, flags flying strong and sharp atop every repaired building. Attendance was voluntary for the survivors of the infestation, but not a single child wasn’t dressed for the occasion so early in the morning, their flowery black and gold academy uniforms buttoned up tight, their capelets swaying in the wind as they stood in neat little rows according to class, height, and age. Perfectly ordered, if not a little sombre.
No outsiders were allowed to attend the funeral. Reconstruction work continued everywhere else, but not the southwestern courtyard. The morning was theirs, and Julius hadn’t spent all week reseeding lilies and carnations across the earth in preparation of the funeral for nothing.
The wind carried sweetly sick scents off the flowers as Zora led the prayer, standing at the very front of the children and before the three open caskets.
One was for the mages, one was for the faculty, and one was for the children. Most of the bodies couldn’t be salvaged, restored, or recovered. They were too badly damaged, especially the mages who all had their necks and magicicada systems crushed to bits. The best Cecilia could do was go around the academy picking up trinkets, tokens, and mementos in place of every body they couldn’t bury, and now all of those little items were in the caskets, ready to be lowered into the ground.
And Marcus had dug rather large holes for the caskets in the courtyard.
“... We are the architects of our fortune,” Zora whispered, eyes closed, head lowered, hands clapped together. “Good souls. Brave souls. Amadeus will remember you.”
“Amadeus will remember you,” the children repeated behind him.
That was the cue for Cecilia, Marcus, and Julius to each close a casket and nudge it into its hole. Zora’s focus lingered on the children’s casket for a moment longer—on the little open but unfinished bag of bloodberry candies sitting at the very top of the item pile—but he allowed himself nothing more than a small, wistful smile as Cecilia cast “to peace with you” on the surrounding dirt, laying the dead to rest once and for all.
Then all was silent.
The children behind him couldn’t help but let out involuntary breaths of relief. Some sobbed, some cried here and there, but they hugged each other, comforted each other, and smiled at each other—they were going to be alright. There were so, so many people here from the outside world, and they were under watch from nearly every major faction and military on the continent. Even a Lesser Insect God would think twice before assaulting Amadeus Academy as it currently was.
The living were going to be just alright.
“... Are you sure you want to go, Zora?”
Cecilia, Marcus, and Julius stood by his side as they watched the children work through the funeral. Julius was looking sickly thin as ever, but he was always as healthy as he could be. Marcus had lost several pounds from how hard he’d been working to rebuild the academy the past month, but there was no doubt he’d regain his monstrous muscles in another month or two. Cecilia had lost her right arm—Julius couldn’t imagine himself reattaching a disfigured arm after such a violent dismemberment—but she was making do with an advanced steel prosthetic powered by Swarmblood; a gift from one of the De Balla Engineers. It’d still be a long way off before she could conduct any orchestras with it, but she’d get there. And she’d be stronger because of it.
So Zora opened his eyes, and there was little difference whether he did so or not.
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He was still blind.
Julius couldn’t heal him, and there was nothing in the world that could return his vision.
But… it really wasn’t as terrible as it seemed.
Between the points he’d put into perceptivity, his Acute Tympana mutation, and literally being unable to see anything apart from extremely powerful sources of light—like staring directly up at the fuzzy glowing ball that was the sun—he’d been honing his depth of perception via hearing and hearing alone. He could tell fourteen unwanted outsiders were lurking around the edges of the courtyard, stealing peeks at the funeral. He could tell how nervous three of them were with their frantically beating hearts. Every slight movement in the world created sound, so if he just put his head forward and focused, it was almost like he could see again; he wouldn’t be able to read or see colours or do anything of the sort, sure, but for the ability to see more than he ever could, it wasn’t such a damning tradeoff.
Especially considering what he was planning on doing.
“You’ve heard me say this before,” he said, smiling softly as he faced the children, hands clasped behind his back. “Bugs leave when they are satisfied with their meal, but the hunger of ‘fire’ knows no bounds. This isn’t over yet. If they are truly sisters of the same blood and flesh, then they won’t take the death of their youngest in stride. Mark my words, as long as Decima and Morta still walk on two feet, they will come for us again—it’s not like you don’t know what to do when bullies try to come for round two, right?”
Marcus grunted. “Get them drunk and lead them to a back alley.”
Julius let out a loud sigh. “T-Then jump them, break their legs, and rob their purses.”
He high-fived the two of them, but Cecilia wasn’t so easily convinced. She crossed her arms and he could physically hear her brows creasing as she frowned at him, though… it wasn’t the ‘angry’ sort of scowl he wouldn’t have been able to deal with.
It was ‘worry’.
‘Fear’.
But he’d told her before, and she knew just as well—behaviour preceded nature, and those who could act brave could become brave.
There was something he needed to do, and fear couldn’t be something that fettered him. It had to be ‘fire’, and it had to be now.
Cecilia knew that.
And apart from the four of them, there were no more Magicicada Mages in the entire world who could defeat the Magicicada Witches.
So, while Cecilia teared up and sniffled and tried to wipe her nose, Marcus grabbed his neck and put him in a headlock, scrubbing his hair harshly.
“We’ll hold down the fort as the new Headmasters of the academy,” Marcus said, grinning from ear to ear. “Hiring new faculty will be tough after what just happened, but… it’ll be easy as well, I think. We’re the teachers who defeated a Lesser Insect God. If that isn’t one hell of a recruiting tagline for perspective guards and faculty, I don’t know what–”
“You mean ‘prospective’, you oaf–”
Julius coughed into his fist as Marcus punched Zora on the head. “A-And I’ll… continue researching my venoms and medicines here. We still don’t really know what… a ‘silkmoth’ really is, so if any orphan comes here with silkmoth mutations, I’ll be able to halt their mutations immediately.” Then he looked Zora in the eye, his face tight and determined like never before. “No more children like Emilia. The next time a half-silkmoth shows up… I’ll put a stop to their mutations. Promise.”
Zora didn’t want to force Julius to do the impossible if it wasn’t possible—given there were no more half-silkmoths around for them to research on—but it was better to just dip his head and be grateful. After all, if there was anyone who could do the impossible, it’d be the scrawny man standing several metres off to the side, doing absolutely nothing to help him break out of Marcus’ grip.
“Help me, man.”
“I-I can’t.”
“He’s gonna kill me.”
“He’s gonna kill me–”
“Zora.”
Cecilia’s voice cut loud and sharp over their squabbling, and Marcus released him in an instant, all three of them standing at attention. Zora was no exception. He stiffened as she walked right in front of him, looking up at him, and… held out something at his face.
A spiral-patterned wand.
“Don’t break it, okay?” she said, voice shaky, nose still runny. “This… is mom’s final gift to me. To all of us. If you break it… or if you lose it or something, I don’t know, I’ll–”
He patted her head, took the wand from her, and then pointed it straight up into the morning sky.
He didn’t have to cast a spell; he didn’t have to move an inch; the wand made out of the flesh of a Lesser Insect God trembled, and then he twirled it slowly around in a circle, letting it point in every conceivable direction before the wand suddenly stopped trembling.
The wand realised its mistake half a second later as he tilted his head.
In its attempt to hide where the second of the Magicicada Witch was, it revealed her exact location to him.
South.
“... I will be back to win my most popular teacher of the year award, you know?” he said, patting Cecilia’s shoulders as he walked past her, spiral wand in one hand. “If you think this is the last you’ll see of me, then think again, and think again. It’ll be a long march down to the Attini Empire, but I’ll be thinking of you guys the entire way there, so don’t mess up the academy while I’m gone. I do want to return and teach once this is all over.”
The rest of the teachers followed after him as he marched through the centre of the crowd. “And how long will that be?” Cecilia shouted. “You ain’t gonna make us wait for five years or longer, right?” Marcus asked. “W-Who’s gonna defend me from Marcus while you’re gone?” Julius stammered.
In response, Zora chuckled as the children clung to his amber cloak, and he patted their heads one by one on his way to the open southwestern gate. “You’re all the new Headmasters of Amadeus Academy, are you not? Figure it out yourself. It’ll do no good for the heads of an academic institution to be associated with a violent wandering bug-slayer, so I’ll appreciate it if you keep letters to a minimum… though I’ve no idea if I’ll be able to send letters back while I’m on my long march. Just send them to my general vicinity and hope I’ll come across them.”
“I’ll send letters, Mister Fabre!” Titus said, his tiny fists clenched and shaking with determination as he looked up at Zora. “I’ll… I’ll protect 2-A while you’re gone! I swear! I’ll… I’ll even go to all of Mister Evander’s fitness classes! I’ll be so strong you won’t even recognise me when you come back!”
Zora curled his lips in a sly, amused smile. “Well, you don’t have to go that far, but please. Watch over 2-A for me until I get back.”
Not in order, the rest of the class monitors piped up as well, each proclaiming their plans and goals for the rest of the year. Some were optimistic. Most were unrealistic. But every declaration, promise, and word was shouted with the betterment of Amadeus Academy in mind, so he couldn’t very well do anything but laugh as they all accompanied him to the southwestern gate—and he alone stepped past the walls of the academy, waved off by the people he held dearest to his heart.
There were still plenty of things he wanted to say to his friends, but… if he looked back now, he wasn’t sure he could keep moving forward.
He’d be back one day.
So as he marched down the ridge to the southern end of the Wolkenkam Mountain Range, he pressed his wand to his lips before pointing it skywards once again—whispering “fireworks” as he did.
And though he couldn’t see them exploding with his very own eyes, he could tell, just by the sounds of the children cheering and his friends shouting at him to come home safe, that they were probably the brightest, most resplendent magic anyone had ever cast.
They were fireworks to herald the death of a Magicicada Witch, the rebirth of Amadeus Academy, and the beginning of his long march to the Attini Empire.
… Do you see them now?
How’s that for ‘fire’, Emilia?
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Volume One, End