Sigh.
I knew this was going to happen the moment I walked in. And I'm afraid I won't be able to talk my way out of it cleanly — at least I still remember the basics from decades ago. And I remember her.
The lecturer.
She was four years older than me. She had that distinct face — the kind that was genuinely hard to forget. Dark hair in a messy, loosely tied wolf cut, framing her face on both sides. Oversized round glasses with thin, shiny metal frames. By the standards of this era, maybe not the picture of a conventional beauty — but if she had been in the modern world, everyone would have adored her. That cute-yet-sharp quality that stops you mid-thought. Even across decades, she was one of the faces that had stayed clear in my memory.
The classroom was quiet now, but the unspoken question was already hanging in the air — where has he been.
Alright. Let's give them something true enough.
"I was sick."
A beat.
"For… almost a month. A full month. Minus the days for my research trip."
"And why were you injured if it was just a research trip?"
She asked it with a sideways look. The expression of someone who had heard bad excuses before and could recognise the shape of one from a distance.
I lowered my voice.
"It might not be a good idea to speak about it here."
"Why?"
I stepped closer — just enough to keep it between us — and said quietly as I passed:
"I may have discovered something not meant for people like us."
She held my gaze for a moment.
"Very well. Take a seat."
I paused.
Only for a second. But in my head it stretched — one second pulling out into something that felt like hours.
I scanned the room.
The faces were… there. But blurred. Fogged at the edges, like photographs left in the sun too long. I had a vague sense of some of them. The shapes of people I'd sat next to, studied with, complained alongside. But the names were gone. Most of the names were completely gone.
"Thran are yyou okay?."
A girl's voice.
I turned.
She wasn't the type to stop a room — but she had a clean, sharp symmetry that made it hard to look away. Chestnut hair pulled back tight. Steady, observant grey eyes. Her uniform had no wrinkles, her hands no ink stains. She looked like someone who had everything organised and preferred it that way.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, pulling at the fog.
Then it came — a flash. Someone hitting my head, laughing about it. A person I was close enough with to let it slide. And then the mention of a sister.
His sister.
"Avelet."
"Yes?" She tilted her head slightly, just enough to show she was surprised I'd said it with that much certainty.
"I'm fine. Thank you for asking."
"Are you really? My brother won't admit it, but he's been worried. He even asked me to check whether you were doing alright."
I hadn't expected that.
Something shifted — quietly, without warning. Not a dramatic thing. Just the feeling of being pulled out of water a few seconds before it became too late. I didn't fully understand why it hit that way. But it did.
"Everyone." The lecturer's voice cut through the room, composed and clear. "As you may recall from two weeks ago — today we have the first of four final assessments this term."
My stomach dropped.
A test. I wasn't even here.
"Before we begin, I'll allow time for a review. I'll also be covering some foundational terms from today's material — a brief run-through from the start."
Just like every time I was about to fail something in the past, I'm saying the same thing I always said:
I am so done. I'm going to be cooked.
"That said — exceptions apply to Avelet de Lunari, Thran Klurette, and Sorest."
I looked up.
"Those three are exempt from today's assessment, having submitted four research progress reports across each term this year — all with supporting evidence."
She glanced at me — brief, almost imperceptible. The smallest hint of a wink.
I noticed. I don't know if anyone else did.
Could I have had some kind of past with the lecturer? I turned the thought over quickly. No — it's completely normal. Twenty-two and twenty-six. But still. A lecturer.
Sigh. I've forgotten most of it anyway. Let's just see how this plays out.
"Starting with the basics of what we covered in Term One."
The lecturer — Tundra, her name came back to me now — spoke clearly, her chalk clicking against the board like a slow metronome.
"The establishment of the Sealran Empire. Approximately one thousand years ago — right after the Burnt Archive."
Click. Click.
"Two hundred, perhaps three hundred years of recorded history — gone. Erased. We don't even know whether the Empire existed at the start of that era. What we know is that it appeared in the final forty years before the Archive ends. The people who lived through it stayed silent. As though something was restraining them from speaking."
I leaned back in my seat, the leather of my duster creaking softly.
A three-hundred-year gap. Someone didn't want the future reading the opening chapter.
"Sealfort," Tundra continued, her round glasses catching the light from the window, "was known as the Immovable Fortress. That name came from the period called the Fall of Humanity — a war in which kings, royals, and soldiers alike were filled with Veridian power. It was a slaughter. The continent lost seventy-four percent of its population. One hundred and forty-eight million people."
The room was very quiet.
"Out of the six original kingdoms, Sealran ranked fifth in military capacity. The underdogs, by every measure. Yet we survived — alongside the Wiste Empire. The other four kingdoms were replaced. What stood in their place afterward became the Supreme State of Jith, the HKS Kingdom, and Malevolent's Grave."
She moved toward the centre of the room, her eyes steady.
"Most people assume the Veridians learned their lesson. That the war ended and they pulled back. Declined."
Her gaze settled on me.
"But you've been on a research trip for a month though unrelated, Thran — and you've submitted work on this exact subject. So. Does a power that kills one hundred and forty-eight million people simply decline because of a lesson?"
I held her gaze.
"Usually," I said, "they don't decline."
And then — in the middle of that sentence — the memory of that paper surfaced. The note. The phrasing.
"They wait."
I paused.
"Thran?"
"…For the next market opening."
The room sat with that for a moment.
Tundra moved on without pressing it further.
"Moving forward." She turned back to the board, her voice returning to its lecturing cadence. "Sealran's survival wasn't luck. Geography was our first advantage — the highest peaks to the north, coarse mountain ranges on the flanks, and open sea to the south. Natural barriers that gave us options the other kingdoms didn't have."
She sketched a rough shape on the board. An octagon. A square nested inside it. A point at the centre.
"The Empire's layout reflects its philosophy. A massive outer octagon, an inner square, and the Capital at the heart — a geometric trap by design. Coupled with military tactics built specifically to counter Veridian-based soldiers, Sealran was undefeated in direct engagement. Those tactics are no longer in use, of course. Relics of a war no one particularly wants to revisit."
She glanced at the watch on her wrist and sighed, her wolf cut swaying slightly as she turned back to the class.
"That concludes the Term One review. A refresher on the fundamentals. Most of you found this material manageable — though the theories on Veridian decline tend to trip up anyone who didn't take their reading seriously."
A pointed pause.
"For the three who are exempt — I'd suggest not wasting the extra time."
"I've had enough excitement for one month," I said, quiet enough for just the surrounding seats to catch. "I'm after results now."
The corner of Tundra's mouth moved — barely. Sharp. Knowing.
She turned back to the class, expression resetting to its default.
"The rest of you — clear your desks. The first final assessment begins now."
She looked at me and gave the faintest tilt of her head toward the door.
"Thran. Follow me."
Her office was just down the hall — conveniently close, as it had always been.
She closed the door behind us and didn't bother sitting.
"So. What did you find?"
I'd expected that. I replied without hesitation.
"I'm not entirely certain. But I believe discussing it openly — even thinking too hard about it in the wrong company — could be dangerous for anyone involved."
"What did you find, Thran."
"Something that shouldn't have been there. Either a hidden incident from centuries ago, caused by a group of Veridians — or remnants of a village I believe dates back to the Burnt Archive period itself. As we know, almost nothing survived that era. A handful of people. What currently exists in records only. That's it."
"And you looked too far behind the curtain and found yourself in the middle of it."
"That's one theory. Yes."
Sigh.
She let out a long breath and looked at the ceiling briefly, the way someone does when they're deciding which version of a problem they're dealing with.
"What am I going to do with you."
"That's a question I've been asking myself."
"Fine. If it's genuinely that dangerous — don't chase it. Not now." She straightened up. "At the very least, graduate first. You're a month and a half out. And perhaps one day… I might join in on whatever this turns into."
"It's not fun, Ms—"
"Miss?" Her expression sharpened. "Did the injury affect your memory too? As long as we're alone — or with the other two —it's Miss Tundra. Tundra Kaelo. I've told you this."
"…Yes. Tundra."
I left the building shortly after.
Before going, I passed a message to Avelet — a goodbye, and something brief for her brother.
The campus garden greeted me on the way out. Small, but the kind of small that felt deliberate — enough greenery to let you breathe, enough quiet to make the walk back to the gate feel longer than it was.
I stepped through.
Tick.
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
I'm worried about this. But what am I supposed to do? I can't exactly leave — I've accidentally become part of a Bureau of Veridians. I haven't graduated. That's another month and a half away at minimum.
I decided to stop thinking about it.
I walked.
The afternoon had settled into something easy — flowers along the roadside, the river catching the light, the warm smell of a bakery drifting out from somewhere nearby. Freshly baked bread. That specific smell that cut through everything else like it had no competition.
This world has its own charm. Not the convenience, not the pace — but something quieter. Something that the modern world had traded away without noticing.
They really do need to fix the street smell though.
I checked my pockets. A couple of links and a silv. Enough.
I should get something for Elris.
The hour was turning. The sun was dropping toward the rooftops, the sky running orange at the edges, deep blue overhead. I walked without a destination — loose, easy, talking to myself in the way you only do when you've genuinely stopped caring whether anyone hears you.
Like a man with nothing on his mind at all.