Zora may not have been born in Amadeus Academy, but he’d certainly spent his adolescence running through the various school buildings, figuring out all the nooks and crannies he and his friends could hide in whenever they earned a teacher’s ire. The old castle was vast, after all, and larger within than it looked without—but the new language arts building was as straightforward as they came. Three floors, one set of stairs at the end of each hallway, and a bridge connecting it to the dorm in the centre of the academy.

The straight hallways meant playing hide and seek in this building was always more a game of tag—a game of speed—than one of smarts and ingenuity. As a student who’d never been particularly athletic compared to his classmates, he always got the shorter end of the stick whenever he was the one being chased. As a teacher who easily dwarfed his students, though, he’d had fun the past two years dominating his kids during joint lessons with the fitness teacher’s homeroom.

… The honey bee that stings always stings back, huh?

He ran. Fast. Two butterfly legs were tucked under his right arm, his magic wand dangling loosely in his left hand. A horde of giant bugs tore through the corridor behind him, mandibles snapping, legs carving through stone and wooden walls like they were made of paper; he sprinted up the stairs as fast as he could, his lungs burning for air as he occasionally threw a glance behind him.

Horrid, ghastly, and evil clad in black. They were beetles, spiders, ants, and all manners of terrestrially bound insects, so bunched together he couldn’t make out how many there were exactly, but he knew they’d all been in the courtyard back when he was escorting Emilia across the bridge. That all twenty or thirty or forty or so of them were here meant the academy mages defending the language arts building at the bottom had really been annihilated, and that meant there was no way he could possibly defeat them. The mages may be antique, but they weren’t senile—even those assigned the academy, who were considered ‘unfit’ for war on the frontlines, had once been trained to slaughter masses of giant bugs without breaking a sweat.

Zora was already breaking a sweat running up three flights of stairs, so now it was his turn to be chased; he was back to being a student again.

By the time he reached the third floor, the entire building was already flooded with bugs. He screeched to a halt the moment he stepped off the stairs, eyes going wide—they were on the walls, outside the windows, legs stabbing through the walls as they surrounded him with a cacophony of screeches. He was fortunate none of them in front were looking at him, so he ducked into the nearest classroom and slammed the door shut as the bugs behind him charged up the stairs, making the entire floor rumble in the process.

The bridge was at the end of the hallway, but a dozen giant bugs stood between him and his destination. Was there a way to get them out of the way?

…

He clenched his jaw as he peeked out the window on the door. He wasn’t sure if it’d work, but…

“Translate,” he whispered, and this time he didn’t charge his wand with the spell. He let the ripple diffuse everywhere, opened the door slightly to let it bounce out of the classroom, and there were so many bugs making so many sounds that none of them seemed to notice his spell going off.

Soon, their unintelligible words turned into comprehensible words, and he pressed his ear against the door to listen closely.

“... Where? Human?” one of them said, accompanied by a series of mandible clicks and flicks. “Ran. Up. Where?”

“I saw third… floor,” another rasped, this one so close he felt its voice vibrating through the wall. “He came up… through stairs… and then?”

“Weren’t. You. Watching?” a third one mumbled, and there were sounds of a scuffle outside as though the giant bugs were wrestling each other. “You. Here. First. Where. He. Go?”

“Wasn’t looking!” a fourth screeched. “You wasn’t! Look! Where human go?”

“Just smell him out! Feel him out! Mother’s orders are to slaughter all and find–”

“I saw! Him! Went down!” he shouted, pushing air from his chest as he clicked his tongue between every word. “Came up stairs, then over railings! Down! Chase him!”

The giant bugs outside stopped talking all at once. He bit his tongue, parsing their speech patterns once again: lower pitches for commands, higher for questions, and pauses between clicks of their mandibles that resembled punctuation in human tongues. There was a guttural quality to their voices even through the ‘translate’ spell, and he couldn’t quite mimic that, but the spell had created a temporary zone across the third floor where they all shared a neutral tongue—he was simply praying they wouldn’t question why his voice sounded much less raspy, and focus more on the fact that he was sharing words with them to begin with.

He didn’t let off. His mouth worked, shaping the hisses, allowing his voice to first vibrate at the back of his throat before forcing it out as a low-pitch command.

“What. Waiting. For?” he snarled, rapping the ground hard with his knuckles. “Down! Second floor! Or mother will come herself!”

And the mention of their ‘mother’ got them moving, scrambling, scuttling outside the hallway as they scraped down the stairs.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as their voices faded, returning to unintelligible screeches as they left his translation zone. It was too early for him to sigh in relief, but… when he eventually raised his head and peeked out the window, he saw not a single giant bug outside.

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I guess moths do follow any light, even into a flame, he thought, pushing the door slowly open as he looked left and right. He bit his tongue as he almost stepped out unaware, though; there was still one giant beetle standing to his left, staring blankly down the hallway as though it were an unruly child appointed as the night sentry against its will.

No amount of mimicry would dislodge it. It was adamant on standing guard on the third floor, so he exhaled through his nose, trying to calm the pounding in his chest—he’d just have to outrun this one last bug, then.

“Strike!” he shouted, charging his wand with the spell and then slinging it at the lantern over its body, breaking the thin metal chain in the process. The lantern smashed into the beetle’s head, making it flinch as he bolted out the classroom, running down the right hallway as fast as his legs could take him.

It was confused enough by what hit it that it didn’t start charging him until two seconds later, at which point he was already at the entrance to the bridge, sprinting towards the cafeteria hall in the distance.

“Rise and pile!” he shouted, flicking his wand at the debris around him as he ran, building small blockades behind him to slow the beetle down. Then he got a better idea, glancing behind him as he whipped his wand around. “Blockade!”

To his surprise, the spell was cast, just… not in the way he wanted it to manifest. He’d thought the two spells of ‘rise’ and ‘pile’ would combine into one and make a blockade automatically, but instead, his ‘blockade’ spell was only a slow-moving wall of sound waves that made the air shimmer, lingering for a few seconds before the beetle smashed right through it like all the other debris blockades.

Even though I can imagine myself physically picking up debris and building a blockade with them?

I… see.

In the same vein, he supposed he wouldn’t be able to cast ‘cook fried eggs’ even if he had the eggs, the stove, and the pan on hand. The effect of the spell had to be something he could complete from start to finish with his bare physical body, and since he couldn’t imagine himself producing eggs from his body or starting up a fire or using his palm as a pan, he wouldn’t be able to cast that spell. ‘Blockade’ was much the same. There may be materials all around he could use to build a wall with, but ‘blockade’ could also mean using his actual physical body as a blockade… and that he could most certainly envision himself doing, so that was how the spell manifested: as a lingering wall of sound waves as tough as his body was.

Basically, I can’t cast ‘do my laundry’. I’ll still need to ‘raise’ water, ‘scrub’ the clothes with soap and water, and then ‘throw’ it on a clothesline manually, he grumbled, yanking in more debris blockades to slow the beetle down, and it was working to an extent. He sprinted into the cafeteria and almost slipped on the cracked tile floor immediately, but the beetle was still a good thirty metres behind him, putting so much energy into swinging its oversized horn left and right when it could just run through his blockades.

His throat was scratchy to the point it felt like it was about to bleed, but he managed to cast ‘close’ on the door to the cafeteria, then ‘rise’ and ‘throw’ with a bunch of tables and chairs to block it with a mountain of furniture. He still flinched when the beetle rammed into the door, almost ripping it and the entire doorway off the wall, but it held—for the time being.

Glancing around, he sighed a breath of relief as he failed to locate Emilia cowering behind some table in the cafeteria. She must’ve entered the dorm without any issues, so now it was his turn to race forward and bang on the heavy steel gate, shouting at whoever was inside to open up.

No response.

The beetle pierced through the door and the mountain of furniture with its curved horn, tearing the entire wall to shreds as it stumbled through.

“... I do not wish to bother you with my knocking fit, good sir, but I am—in every sense of the word—in quite the ‘pickle’ here!” he shouted, gritting his teeth as he watched the beetle charge straight at him. “Open up! Actually, maybe stay away from the gate! I’ve no idea if the beetle will spear through both you and I if we’re standing inches apart–”

“Duck.”

A voice shouted back from the other side of the gate, so he dropped to his stomach, no questions asked.

The heavy gate swung inwards immediately afterwards, and he heard only a single spell being cast—”Da Capo”—before a whole orchestra of floating instruments played a single, discordant note, tearing through the cafeteria to stun the charging beetle.

It would’ve run its horn right through him, but the incredibly harsh sound disoriented it and made it ram into the wall next to the gate instead. While it struggled to free itself, Zora struggled to stand, too—his skull and ears were ringing—but then someone grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the dorm. The heavy gate swung close a second later, the metal bolts and latches sealing automatically as it returned to its normal state.

He stayed right at the entrance for a few more seconds, hands on his knees, panting for breath as the beetle banged into the gate behind him. It quickly seemed to realise there was no way its horn could go through the thick steel, though, so the banging stopped after a while; the ringing in his head didn’t, but he could feel someone talking to him, hugging him from the side.

Groggily, he looked around and saw Emilia burying her face in his waist, refusing to let go even as he smiled tiredly and tried to flick her forehead.

“... Told you I’d be back,” he breathed, forcing himself to stand up straight as he slipped her a piece of candy to nibble on. “You could’ve opened the gate a little faster, though. A few more seconds and I’d–”

“Don’t move.”

A young voice snapped at him, high-pitched and riddled with fear. It was feisty, fast-spoken, and he immediately recognised its owner as he looked around the dark, dimly lit foyer.

The dorm at the centre of the academy was a two-storey building with five gates leading in and out, but the word ‘dorm’ was a bit misleading; it was more like a noble’s mansion than any student residence. The private rooms were all on the second floor, but the communal baths, study rooms, and kitchens were all fitted next to the giant common room on the first floor. The idea was new transfer student would have a safe, cosy little space where all the important facilities were close by, allowing them to grow more comfortable with their new home quicker.

The southwestern foyer he was currently in wasn’t any less grand and richly decorated as a result: it was a long hallway with arched ceilings, sparkly chandeliers, and stone pillars lining the walls. A red carpet ran below him from the gate to the door at the end of the foyer, which would lead into the common room at the centre of the dorm room. Dim lantern light came from the common room, as well as a bunch of eyes peeking at him from the distant doorway—so he scowled at the lady standing in front of him, narrowing his eyes at the wand pointed straight at his face.

“... Prove you’re not a bug disguising as a human.” Cecilia, the one and only music teacher in the academy, tightened her grip on her wand as she chewed her lips. “Tell me five things only Zora would know, or I’m going to blow your face off.”