Earlier that day.
A few minutes before Acheron parted ways with William.
"William, can you do me a favor?" Acheron asked politely, dragging his arm back and forth.
*Her idea of being polite.
"Yawn~ I'm so sleepy, what do you want, Sister Ache?" William finally gave her his attention.
"Can you come back to this same spot in about… thirty minutes?"
"Ah! Sounds like stress!" William attempted to run away.
Swish…!
He dashed past the trees, running far away from the courtyard.
"Phew~ I think I lost her."
He stopped in his tracks and turned to face forward only to find Acheron waiting for him.
"Ah!!" With the shock of surprise, he attempted to run again, but this time Acheron pinned him down.
"No, no, it's not stressful… there are just some nobles who are trying to force my hand in marriage!"
"Your hand... in marriage?"
William's expression changed.
Acheron knew William valued his family more than anything else. In the original writing, he did everything in his power to protect his father and younger sister, obeying his father's every command without question.
As the Author, Acheron took advantage of that, knowing exactly how her brother would respond.
William raised himself up; Acheron was still on his shoulders, her upper body resting on his head.
"Where was that spot again?" His sleepy eyes became more focused.
Acheron's lips slowly widened, forming a cunning smile.
—
Present Time.
William sat under the oak tree in the courtyard the whole time. After a while, he saw nobles who matched Acheron's description trying to burn the commoners' building to the ground.
'Bullying the weak? Do they not have a shred of honor… anyways, it doesn't matter…' William thought as he shifted his hair from his face so he could see clearly.
"Be still… wither away."
The fire spell froze mid-air and dispersed into a million pieces, falling down like snow.
The nobles turned in his direction, trying to figure out who it was from afar.
"Hey, isn't that one of the Anaxagoras brothers?" One of them pointed toward him.
"Yeah, why is he stopping our fun?"
"Beats me…Ack!"
Before any of them could say another word, they were frozen to the bone.
William walked up to their frozen bodies and lowered his head.
"If any of you even come near my sister again…" He pushed one of them, knowing if their frozen body falls, it will shatter to pieces without a single drop of blood to be accounted for.
'AHHH HELP ME!' The noble who was falling screamed in his thoughts, his expression pleading for mercy.
Snap.
With a snap of his fingers, William dispersed the ice from each of their bodies.
"Take that as your last and only warning."
"Yessir!" The scared nobles said in unison.
William bowed to apologize to the commoners' professors and left for his class.
One of them, Pedro, clutched his chest, trying to recover his breathing.
'Damn it, if it wasn't because of them orange haired cutie, we won't have come out here... damn it!'
"Whi..ch…sis…ter..was he talking about?" Another one of them said, shivering.
"I don't know, but at any rate, let's get out of here!"
The nobles scrambled back into the main building.
Most of the commoner students' jaws were dropped by the scene that played out in front of them.
Nieves straightened herself and sheathed her sword. She didn't care whether William saved them or not. In her eyes, all nobles are the same.
"Come on, love, let's go."
Nieves turned towards the gate, walking alongside Vincent.
But just then she felt like she was being watched. She immediately turned to look behind, from the grounds to all the windows of the main building.
"I could have sworn I—"
"Nieves, hurry up!"
She shook it off and left the academy.
—
♛Acheron's Pov:
'Phew~ That was close…' Acheron ducked back down below the window. 'I finally get to see my main character… she so pretty! >.<'
"Acheron!" A charming voice halted her thoughts.
"Y-Yes… oh Dalia!"
An orange haired girl rested on Acheron's desk. Swirling her hair and holding a piece of paper in her hand.
"How were my acting skills? Those guys were practically drooling over me. They obeyed what I said and went outside immediately."
Acheron smiled and collected the paper from Dalia. "I think you did well, I'm impressed really, you should build up courage and tell your family about your dreams."
"Sighs~ if only it was that easy…"
"Morning, mages."
The voice came from the man standing in front of the class. The professor had just arrived.
The chattering stopped, all the students settling back into their seats.
Professor Arzu walked to the center of the class, holding up his staff. In his other hand, he held a map.
Tap. Tap.
He stomped his staff twice on the floor, creating a 3D hologram of the map. Five spots were glowing, indicating that they have been marked.
Seeing the parts of the map that glow, Acheron immediately understood what the professor was about to teach.
The five great dungeons.
In the original story, she established them as one of the greatest threats the kingdom has ever seen. More than three hundred years ago, five portals randomly appeared in different parts of the kingdom.
Different monsters emerged from the portals, hungry for blood. They raided villages, towns, islands, even the royal castle.
Destroying everything in their path.
Word soon spread that the same "random portals" had also appeared in the neighboring elven kingdom, Valenmarch.
It took five Eternal Knights and three Eternal Mages to defeat all the monsters and seal the mysterious portals. But by the time they succeeded, millions had already died. Towns and cities were completely wiped out.
To perform the sealing magic that would keep the portals shut for eternity, the Eternal Mages made the knights immortal by using the power of the portals against themselves.
The knights became the doors to the portals, doors that would never break.
These portals were later named "Dungeons."
Over time, humans began entering the dungeons and studying them. Soon after, they realized they could obtain mythical relics and fight monsters to train themselves.
Year after year, many mages and knights continued to battle the monsters. It never truly ended. Most of them returned, but greed for relics consumed those who did not. Either that, or they died from the hands of the monsters.
"Today we will be discussing one of the Dungeon Guardians," Professor Arzu began. "Specifically, the one who guards the Dungeon in Elysium Reach."
The map zoomed in on the Golden plains, then the angle shifted to behind the region to where one of the kingdom's greatest forests was.
Elysium Reach.
One of the places where the Dungeon appeared three hundred years ago.
The first human to enter the Dungeon described it as "Inside the Dungeon was like… like a prison made of ice with various beasts roaming about…" There the Dungeon was named Winter of the Sky.
"The Guardian's name is Rose… the Valiant Revelation."
'Rose… I remember naming her after my mother...' "Rose was born with a Dormant core. Throughout her life, she was never able to do magic, but even so, she became an Eternal Knight through hard work and intense training."
He tapped his staff on the ground once more and the image shifted to the Dungeon.
"During the Monster Massacre era, she was one of the Knights who sacrificed their life for all eternity to keep the monsters from ever getting out."
'The Guardians can be replaced… there is a spell to do so and the Elder mages of the kingdom know it, but due to fear of the monsters escaping… they ignored the Guardians and let them rot.'
-「 The cruelty of humans… their bodies may be immortal, but no mind can ever be normal again after living three hundred years inside a tomb filled with different kinds of beings. 」
'I am even more cruel for writing it this way… no matter what, I should not have let them suffer this way.'
-「 If you feel at fault, why don't you do something about it? 」
'I can't do anything about it. Even I as author just wrote that there is a spell and only the elders know it… I never wrote it deeper than that.'
-「 … 」
Acheron's grip on her book tightened as she bit her lip so hard it tore open, causing blood to bleed out.
Argenti, who was listening to the lecture, sensed the flow of something liquid.
He turned to see Acheron almost tearing her lips off and tapped her.
"Hey! Hey! You okay?" He whispered.
Snapping back into consciousness, Acheron felt the blood and quickly brought out her napkin to clean it up.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Argenti watched her for a while before shrugging it off.
The lecture continued for another hour, covering historical figures over the years who have fought in the Winter of the Sky.
After another hour, the professor waved his hand, dismissing the students.
Acheron grabbed her bag and followed the others as they left the hall.
She headed straight for the announcement board where she expected a scene to play out.
After a few minutes of waiting, the academy's Mage of the Year, Aurelia Asterion, Argenti's elder sister and the firstborn of the Asterion family, came through the headmaster's doors with a silver-tinted paper in her hand.
She carefully pinned it to the announcement board. Not long after, students started to gather around it.
"Woah~ Is this real?"
"Against the commoners? No way…"
"I was waiting for when this day would come…hehehe."