"You remember me, Senior?"
"...you..."
"Ah, let me introduce her. This is my younger sister, Yidra."
Claire felt something shift in her chest at that. There was a resemblance between them if she looked carefully, but what genuinely floored her was the realization that Yidra was the same girl who had beaten her in that duel.
She could not quite describe what she was feeling. The emotions were a tangled mess she did not have words for.
"Hello~ Senior?" Yidra waved a hand in front of Claire's face. "Why are you spacing out? Something wrong?"
"Ah. No, I am just surprised that you are Lutra's younger sister."
"Right?! Honestly I find it surprising too when people find out we are related! I mean look at us! Sure the faces are a bit similar but aside from that, what even tells you we are siblings?"
"Watch your mouth." Lutra pulled Yidra's ear.
Yidra yelped and started trying to pry her older sister's fingers away.
"Everyone, we should get moving. The Headmaster has confirmed all the attackers have been caught." Celi said.
"Exactly what you would expect from the Headmaster."
"Alright then, let us go."
They moved out with Tristan at the front keeping watch, and even with word that all the attackers had been taken down, none of them got careless.
It did not take long before they were out of the dormitory.
A burst of golden light appeared in the sky above them. Elisha's doing. Everyone already knew what it meant. An assembly signal.
Shortly after, professors and evacuated students had gathered at the wide open field near the center of the academy. Students lined up in long rows stretching across the field. The professors stood facing them from the opposite side.
The mood was tense. Most of the students still looked shaken, though a handful seemed calm.
"Ard."
Ard turned toward the voice. Tristan was approaching with the others.
"Everyone alright?" Ard asked, closing the distance.
"More or less. We are okay, mostly."
"Good. I am glad—"
"Young Maaaaster!!!" Several people flinched at the volume. Before Ard could finish his sentence, Yidra crashed into him at full speed, the impact hard enough to make him cough.
"Young Master! I missed you so muuuch." Yidra wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest.
"Y-Yidra? We only saw each other two months ago and you already missed me that much?"
"Yes! Because during those two whole months you never came to visit! And honestly it is not just me that missed you, the others did too!"
"There is a reason I have not been visiting, Yidra." Ard smiled, sweat appearing at his cheek.
"What reason?"
"Yidra..."
"Hieekk!" The sweat on Yidra's face tripled in an instant. Her eyes went wide and her whole body started to tremble. She could feel it, a massive wall of heat rising from somewhere directly behind her, like standing too close to an open furnace. Slowly, very slowly, she turned around.
Lutra was standing there smiling, a small crease at her chin that most people would not have caught. But Yidra, Ard, Claire, and the others caught it immediately.
Behind Lutra loomed something that had no business being visible in an academy field. A shape like a horned demon, tusks long and gleaming, wreathed entirely in roaring flame.
Claire, Celi, Anna, Tristan, and Sai all recognized at once what was about to happen. Cold sweat. Immediate dispersal. Even Ard, who had been standing right inside Yidra's embrace, was simply no longer there without her noticing how it had happened.
"Y-Young Master..." Yidra looked toward where Ard had been, her eyes already filling up.
Ard was not looking at her. He had arranged his expression into something thoroughly neutral, which would have been more convincing if sweat was not running freely down his face.
'Rest well. Yidra.' He closed his eyes in something like a quiet prayer, listening to the screaming.
"Terrifying. I am now fully convinced humans can be crueler than demons." Sai muttered, rubbing his own arms against the goosebumps.
"I learned something new today as well." Claire said, still sweating.
And so the six of them stood there in shared horror at the violence Yidra was experiencing.
---
A little while later, Claire, Anna, Sai, and Yidra, who was notably worse for wear, rejoined their class in the student rows. Celi and Tristan took their places among the professors.
Lutra stood behind Ard with her head lowered and her hands folded in front of her, the picture of a composed and professional maid, the faint traces of Yidra's blood still visible on her hands.
"Attention." A woman's voice rolled across the entire field without effort, reaching every ear in the crowd.
At the center of the field, the ground began to tremble.
Murmurs of surprise rippled through the students as a section of earth slowly lifted itself from the surface. Soil and stone rose together, piling upward into a mound that kept climbing above the crowd. From the cracks splitting along its sides, enormous roots pushed outward and stretched toward the sky, winding around each other in movements that looked almost alive, forming solid pillars that supported a wide platform at the top.
Other roots extended downward, arranging themselves into a broad staircase connecting the ground to the platform above. Piece by piece, a grand podium assembled itself before thousands of watching eyes.
When it was done, the structure stood at the center of the field like a small hill born from the earth itself. At its peak sat only a single plain desk, as though all that grandeur had been built for the sole purpose of drawing attention to one person who would stand there.
And then, unhurried, Elisha climbed the stairs.
She stopped just behind the desk and turned to face the students. Their faces showed her everything at once. Eyes wide, expressions a mix of awe, admiration, and respect, all of it overlaid with a single unspoken question.
'What realm has the Headmaster reached?'
It was a fair question. Among the seven experts scattered across the various continents, which of them could do something like this without it costing them anything at all? It was possible, in theory. But it demanded enormous effort. It left even the strongest fighters drained.
Elisha did not look tired. She did not look like she had spent anything.
Truly a living legend of the Great Racial War.
Arbiter of Silence. Evangeline De Gray. Elisha II.
"Some of you may already understand why you have been gathered here."
Elisha looked out across the field without rushing.
"A group of filthy rats attempted to cause disorder within the academy."
Not one student spoke. They listened.
"Some of you are frightened. Some of you are angry. Some of you may have started to wonder whether this academy is actually a safe place to be."
There was no anger in her voice. No edge of offense. It came out so calm that the calm itself was steadying.
"Those are natural reactions. Nobody likes a threat. Nobody likes the thought of death. There is nothing enjoyable about fear."
Elisha raised her hand and closed it slowly into a fist. A faint but noticeable pressure crept into the air around her.
"Frankly, I was caught off guard too. I did not expect anyone to be foolish enough to attack the academy."
The wind moved across the field, slow and quiet.
"But listen carefully. You are still standing here. You are still breathing. Some of you are injured, but there were no casualties, and I am deeply grateful to everyone who contributed to getting the students to safety."
"Well... I just want a raise." Ard muttered it at a volume so low that only Lutra should have been able to catch it. He was fairly certain only she had heard, until he noticed Elisha glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
'Damn, she heard that...' Ard turned his face away and started quietly whistling at nothing.
Elisha let out a small quiet laugh, then continued. Her expression settled into something sharper.
"You do not need to worry about tomorrow. Because Academy Aetherion is still standing."
The entire field went silent.
"This academy stood long before most of the kingdoms that exist today were even born. It has weathered wars. Survived invasions. Outlasted the collapse of nations and the fall of empires. And it is still standing."
An invisible pressure had begun to gather in the air.
"Not because of me. Not because of Elisha I. Not because the walls are strong or the magic is powerful or the name carries weight."
Elisha raised one finger.
"This academy has survived because the people inside it never gave up."
The students swallowed without realizing they were doing it.
"I want you to remember one thing."
"Fear is not weakness."
Several students looked up in surprise.
"Weakness is letting fear take control of you."
"You are allowed to be afraid."
"You are allowed to doubt."
"You are allowed to tremble."
"But do not ever stop moving forward."
Elisha's gaze moved across the entire field.
"Because the world out there will not pause just because you are scared."
"Your enemies will not wait until you are ready."
"Danger will not hold off until after you have finished your studies."
Her voice dropped slightly lower.
"That is exactly why you are here."
"To learn."
"To grow."
"To become stronger than you were yesterday."
"Today you saw that the world can be a brutal place." A thin smile crossed her face.
"Good."
"Better to learn that now, while there are still people here who can protect you."
"Learning from experience is worth more than learning from theory. That is why I established the academy's ranking system through Quest contributions. You gain real experience, you gain real opportunity to grow stronger, and for those of you from common backgrounds, you can earn a livelihood from it as well."
She paused for a moment.
"Wounds can be healed."
"Fear can be overcome."
"Failure can be corrected."
"But someone who gives up on themselves..."
"...cannot be saved by anyone."
Elisha looked at the sky briefly, then back at the students.
"So raise your heads."
"You are students of Academy Aetherion."
"And I refuse to watch my students bow their heads over one small attack."
She raised her hand high, her expression going firm, and her voice came out like a strike.
"What has been built over centuries does not fall in a single day!"
The students' eyes lit up. Their answer rose back across the field.
"It will not fall!"
Then Tristan's voice cut through the air, fist raised, a burst of aura shooting from his knuckles toward the sky.
"For the future! For peace!"
The students answered as one.
"For Aetherion!"
* * *