Published: May 18th 2025, 10:52:54 pm
The Nychtys Queen floated gracefully in the air, looking at Leonie and Aeliana with predatory eyes. Her laughter was eerie, not completely human, like the distant sound of water mistaken for the crowd's chattering. The spring sun made her orange monarch butterfly wings shimmer. Each section of her wings was a bright piece of stained glass, casting reflections over her pure-white skin. However, the most unsettling part of her anatomy was her eyes—electric blue and filled with mana, just like Leonie’s.
“Don’t be fooled; her wings are like glass shards,” Leonie said, raising her knife. The girl’s pupils were electric blue, shining with a dim, magical light. “She’s fast. Think you are fighting a low-level Chrysalimorph!”
Aeliana raised her guard without taking her eyes off the Nychtys Queen.
“I don’t know what a Chrysalimorph is! I don’t care! I want to know why your mother is a monster!”
“Don’t call my mother that!”
“If it’s not a monster, why did the Dreadshade turn into it?!”
Before Leonie could answer, the Nychtys Queen darted forward in a corkscrew spin. Aeliana sidestepped, but Leonie stayed put, channeling her mana into a bolt of energy. The creature wasn’t half as fast as the real Nychtys Queen, and even Mister Clarke was faster, and he wasn’t technically a martial class. The hair on her neck stood up as arches of mana streamed into the ground. Leonie felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. A month ago, she couldn’t muster that amount of mana, even with [Fae Curse] doubling her mana pool and her mana channeling.
Leonie used [Lighting Glaive]. The Dreadshade wasn’t fast enough to dodge. The spear hit the beast between the eyes, exploding in a multicolored cascade of sparks and sending the Dreadshade to its original form—a smudge of black ink.
The Dreadshade shifted, and a snake head emerged from the ink smudge and jolted towards Aeliana.
“Stop!” Leonie commanded, and the Dreadshade froze mid-transformation.
Dreadshades were vicious creatures. Like Mimics and Changelings, they didn’t need food to survive. However, Dreadshades seemed to enjoy killing their prey even if they wouldn’t consume it.
“What in everloving flesh-eating sandstorm? The Dreadshade obeys you?” Aeliana muttered, walking away from the frozen snake's head.
“Surprise, I guess?” Leonie replied.
The Dreadshade seemed to struggle against invisible binding.
Leonie shot a second [Lighting Glaive] and the Dreadshade turned into black petals and disappeared without leaving a body—if it had any to start with. Leonie bent down and grabbed two small bronze tiles with the picture of the royal stag carved on them. They emitted a weak mana signature.
“Hey! We have two totems!” Leonie said.
Aeliana crossed her arms over her chest. It wasn’t a Karid expression, but she was good at picking up the non-verbal customs of the Ebrosian cadets. Still, the expression felt a bit forced, like she wasn’t accustomed to it.
Leonie put the totems inside her pocket, but they instantly shone through her clothes.
“Well, now everyone knows we have loot.”
“Don’t change the topic! I know you want to talk. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have shown me whatever you did with the ink creature! You are clear to me, Little Sand Dune!”
Leonie rolled her eyes. Despite knowing that ‘Little Sand Dune’ was an affectionate nickname, she found it too childish. Unlike gnomes, gaining a karid’s trust was hard, and she didn’t know why Aeliana had decided she was worthy of her trust.
“Don’t call me that, I’m not a child!” Leonie said.
This time, it was Aeliana rolling her eyes. The karid girl walked to the fountain and signaled Leonie to sit beside her.
“You talked, now you tell truth,” Aeliana said, her accent getting thicker the angrier she got. “I know you want.”
Leonie hesitated momentarily but gave in, knowing that Aeliana wouldn’t accept anything else. Karids were quite stubborn, but that wasn’t her only reason. Deep inside, she yearned to tell someone, even if it only served to ease her worries. Her heart beat faster than during the fight.
“Your mother is the Nychtys Queen,” Aeliana said, touching her right temple like she was trying to remember something. “Yvain told us. Your father is famous because he stopped the Nychtys Queen Monster Surge.”
Leonie shook her head.
“How do you know something is a monster?”
“The System tells you if you have proper identification skills. Even kids know that,” Aeliana said as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“So, the System decides what is a monster? What happens if the System decides that karids are monsters? Am I a monster because my mother is a Fae?” Leonie asked.
“You are not a monster, Little Sand Dune,” Aeliana replied, putting a hand on Leonie’s shoulder. “So, let me get this straight… your human father and butterfly mother got busy on the fresh side of the dunes, and then you came out of an egg?”
Leonie massaged her temples.
“I didn’t come out of an egg! Fae have kids like other humanoids,” Leonie said. “And Yvain is wrong. There wasn’t a Nychtys Queen Monster Surge. It was a territorial conflict between humans and fae.”
“I’m sorry. Didn’t know,” Aeliana said.
“It’s okay.”
The water fell in disarray through the cracks of the deer statue where the Dreadshade was hidden.
“Sand Eaters are hard to detect. They scurry into camps and eat people in their sleep. I’ve always been scared of them. It’s not that they are huge snakes; there are a lot of huge snakes in the deep desert. Sand Eaters are dangerous because you don’t see them coming for you,” Aeliana said after a moment of silence. “I’m sorry for freezing. It will not happen again.”
The water continued flowing through the statue's cracks, making a sound similar to the Nychtys Queen's laughter.
“I’m not scared of my mother,” Leonie replied. “I’m scared of the idea of being wrong. What if she’s actually a monster? You don’t see the System making mistakes. But the Fae can speak like us. Sure, they are dangerous and violent at times, but you can reason with them.”
Aeliana didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t doubted the System ever before meeting Mister Clarke. At first, she thought he was an eccentric man with a strange teaching method. Claiming that the System was a mere tool to be learned was the opposite of what the karid elders said. The System was the source of strength of the karid warriors, or so she thought. Now, Aeliana had doubts. Mister Clarke had defeated her and the other cadets with his Class sealed at level one, so he couldn’t be all that mistaken.
“Master Clarke might know something. He kinda dislikes the System,” Aeliana said.
“He seems dependable,” Leonie replied. “Sometimes.”
“He gets lost in thought quite often, uh?”
The girls laughed.
“I haven’t told this to anyone, but I think the System is biased somehow,” Leonie said. “I can influence non-talking fae, which is expected, but the System doesn’t recognize Mimics, Changelings, Dreadshades, as fae, and I can influence them too.”
“That’s strange,” Aeliana said as a smile appeared on her face.
“What is so funny?”
“You told me your secret. We are warrior-sisters now.” Aeliana’s expression suddenly turned serious. “I swear to keep your secret until the day I die, and I swear I will help you find the truth.”
Leonie slapped her shoulder.
“Don’t be so dramatic!”
“We are warrior-sisters, we share everything now.” Aeliana grinned, channeling her Character Sheet.
Name: Aeliana Un-Osgiria, Karid.
Class: Blade Dancer Lv.9
Titles: Dancer, Dune Stalker.
Passive: Fencing Lv.2, Spear Mastery Lv.2, Acrobatics Lv.2, Tracking Lv.2, Desert Camouflage Lv.3, Heat Resistance, Karid’s Armor.
Skills: Bladedance, Wind Step, Sandveil, Dance of the Whistling Dune.
Leonie summoned her Character Sheet.
Name: Leonie Almedia, Human (Bright).
Class: Sorcerer Lv.11
Titles: Almedia Heir, Gifted, Fae Curse.
Passive: Fencing Lv.2, Spear Mastery Lv.2, Riding Lv.2, Mana Regeneration, Mana Manipulation, Enhanced Vision.
Skills: Stormlash, Lightning Glaive, Fae Stars, Stormveil.
Aeliana let out a long whistle.
“I thought low-level Sorcerers only have access to [Lighting Spear]. No wonder you almost killed Master Clarke the first day.”
“Compliments will not get you anywhere. Let’s go, we have had enough rest already,” Leonie said, dismissing her Character Sheet and patting the pocket where she had stored the totems. “We still have to gather six more of these.”
Aeliana nodded and jumped to her feet.
There were four entrances to the fountain clearing. They had arrived through the southern entrance, so they had three options.
“Your call, you are the smart one,” Aeliana said.
Leonie scratched her chin.
“There’s not much more maze to the east, so let’s go north and try to veer west to meet other squads. Let’s give the others space to breathe.”
Aeliana nodded, and without saying more, they jogged through the northern opening.
*
Leonie caused an audible explosion, and all the instructors gathered on the western side of the watchtower to spectate the girl’s fight. Leonie’s spells were too strong for a Lv.11 Sorcerer. Even my [Mana Manipulation] couldn’t generate such an amount of magic when I was Lv.11, and I had dozens upon dozens of title stacks in my favor. Leonie couldn’t have more than three or four; she was too young.
“That’s not a summoner monster, that’s an actual Dreadshade,” Talindra said with a worried expression.
Small skirmishes between cadets and monsters started breaking out along the maze after the thirty-minute mark. I noticed Black Wolves, Slimes, and Thieving Spiders, but there were a lot of other monsters away from my [Identify] range. Most monsters had the [Summoned] tag along their names, but a few seemed to be real.
For the past few years, I have learned to be less apprehensive. Kids in this world were used to the fact that monsters exist, after all. However, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. The cadets were on their own. No instructors or older cadets were patrolling the maze. The closest thing to a security measure was us, but the labyrinth is quite big, and it was hard to see what happened near the edges. Even with [Minor Aerokinesis], it would take me precious seconds to cover the distance if a fight got out of control.
Moreover, Leonie made it clear that cadets had enough strength to harm each other, and the exam was designed for them to fight.
“Who is that girl, and why did she end up in Cabbage?” Ghila asked.
“Leonie Almedia, the daughter of Sir Gerar Almedia,” Holst replied.
“Oh. Weird.”
I didn’t like how that ‘oh’ sounded.
Down in the maze, Leonie summoned her lightning spear and skewered the chrysalimorph-like Dreadshade, sending it back to its formless self. Whispers ran through the watchtower as more instructors gathered to see the fight. Only a few cadets had shown such a display of power, most belonging to Astur’s squad. Most cadets were struggling against the summoned monsters. Even low-level Slimes and Black Wolves were extremely resilient compared to regular animals and could withstand a lot of spells before falling down.
Leonie channeled her thunder spell and finished the Dreadshade.
Ghila’s reaction to Leonie’s skill still bothered me.
“Is there any problem with Leonie, Darius?” I asked.
Holst turned around.
“Considering how she dealt with the Dreadshade, I don’t think there’s a problem with her. On the contrary, she might be a generational talent.”
“I’m being serious.”
Holst looked at me like he was questioning whether it was worth telling me.
Before he could decide, Ghila stepped forward. Her multicolored tabard made her stand out from the sober black uniforms of the other Knights. She was too flashy, and I couldn’t help but think she looked more like a mercenary than an Imperial Knight.
“Cabagge is a dump squad; every one of your cadets has a problem. We pick our cadets after the entrance exam, and the rest go into the dump squads,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m Ghila Wolfsong, instructor of the Brambleborn Class.”
Ghila’s presence was overwhelming. I couldn’t tell if she was bad at hiding her mana signature or just didn’t care. However, her voice had no malice; it was just cold, hard facts.
“There’s nothing wrong with my cadets,” I said.
“You really don’t know how the ball rolls in this place, uh?” she replied. “The Nychtys Queen cursed Gerar Almedia during the monster surge, and there’s a rumor the curse fell upon his daughter. I mean, please, Leonie Almedia’s hair is white. She’s totally cursed. What else? Yvain Osgiria was knocked out ten places in the succession order after his father’s death and the shitshow he caused in the Farlands campaign. Enric Osgiria almost fractured the royal army, so he lost a lot of credibility before dying. Malkah of Stormvale might be the son of a duke, but honestly, there is more political power in this watchtower than in all Kigrian territory. Besides, Lord Kigria isn’t easy to deal with.”
[Foresight] told me that Ghila was telling the truth; we were a dump squad with a joke name. I looked at Talindra, but she avoided my eyes. Still, every single one of the cadets had managed to pass the entrance exam, and in my books, that was the only metric that mattered.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Robert Clarke,” Ghila said. The way she spoke made me think she wasn’t used to being denied. “I want to know if the Weasel was a fraud or if he was the real deal.”
I looked down at the maze. Leonie and Aeliana had decided to rest for a moment. Good call. The others pushed into the labyrinth, still ahead of the other squads.
“Hey! I’m talking to you!” Ghila said.
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you the truth,” I replied.
“I don’t have patience for little games,” she said, mana crackling around her eyes.
Janus had the ultimate assassination skill. Ebros probably had a handful of warriors capable of fighting without the System's assistance. His misfortune was that I was one of them. I could only guess how many victims he had taken during his partnership with the defunct Prince Ragna.
“Focus on the exam, Ghila, in case you have to bail out one of your students,” Holst interjected.
“Those are summoned monsters, Holst. They are supposed to back off before seriously hurting anyone,” Ghila replied, almost in a bark.
Holst raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t recall Astur mentioning anything about forfeiting, and that Dreadshadow wasn’t a summoned monster.”
Ghila let out a long sigh and cursed Astur.
I wondered if things were usually like this in the Academy.
“We have a pending conversation, Robert Clarke,” Ghila said, returning to the northern side of the watchtower.
The talk about Leonie’s skills didn’t stop there. Many wondered if their power came from the training Gerar Almedia had given her or if the supposed curse gave her new powers. Nobody pointed out that the reason behind her strength might have been our training. Not even I was sure that was the case.
I pushed those worries aside.
Down in the maze, Kili’s group was encountering their first challenge.