Professor Daw slammed a stack of paper down on her desk, sending the sand shaking inside the hourglass she had on the desk. Alira placed a finger light on top of it to stop it in place lest it fell off and raised the professor’s blood pressure even further.

  She felt strangely optimistic about being inside Professor Daw’s office on this day—she was breaking a custom, for this day wasn’t what Monday before had been for her. Her eyes reflexively darted toward the paper to read the contents when Professor Daw covered her hand on top.

  “Miss Alira, I see your recovery must be going smoothly since you have the energy, and the face, to apply for yet another outing,” Professor Daw said, glaring down at Alira.

  Alira flashed a polite smile at her. “Yes, Professor. Sometimes I feel like I’ve recovered so well that I could even see things I haven’t been able to before.”

  The professor must have given up on Alira when she snapped at Raine, seated on her side instead. “You, too, Mr. Raine. Shouldn’t you be busy with Professor Rosafie’s research project you’ve signed up for?”

  “My work with Professor Rosafie is on track. This won’t get in the way,” Raine replied without batting an eye.

  Professor Daw sighed. “Why do you want to leave the Academy again? So that you two can go missing as your friend had?”

  Ouch.

  Alira covered her mouth and coughed. She turned her gaze away, wondering what kind of face Professor Daw would make if she knew just how right she was. Their exact plan was to get kidnapped as two unsuspecting street urchins and find out firsthand where the victims were taken to.

  The room was quiet for a moment, except for a rhythmic thud, thud, thud. Alira glanced around, wondering where the sound was coming from when she zoomed in on a certain body part of her with a mind of its own. She snatched her drumming tail, wrapping it around her hand to prevent it from acting up any further.

  Professor Daw exhaled yet another deep, long sigh. “Get out, you two. Both of you are forbidden from leaving the Academy grounds unless accompanied by an Academy personnel or someone from the Duchy.”

  Raine met Alira’s eyes with an ‘I told you so’ written across his face. Alira shrugged. She had gotten up from her seat when Professor Daw slid the stack of paper forward.

  “Since you’re both so free, take one each and distribute the rest of the paper to everyone in your intake,” she said.

  Alira instinctively reached her hand out to it. She blinked. There were about two hundred students in the intake, if she wasn’t mistaken.

  Raine quickly bowed toward the professor and dashed. Hell no. Alira snapped her head down to Professor Daw and traced his steps right after. The door slammed behind her. She juggled the paper into one hand to grab a handful of Raine’s collar and yanked him back hard.

  “She said ‘both’!” Alira said, darting her finger back and forth between her and Raine. “You really have the heart to leave a partially blind, poor young girl to deliver all these to hundreds of strangers scattered across the campus?”

  Raine narrowed his eyes ever so slightly; the movement would have escaped Alira had she not been glaring straight at his face. He broke the staring contact first, looking away, as he extended his hand out.

  Alira dropped the entire stack into his hand, dusting off her gloved hands. “About Lillian—”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it,” Raine cut in, walking away. “I’ll ask some people I know for a favor to keep an eye out.”

  Alira nodded. She guessed he was most likely talking about the Mycorrhiza guild. They might help since it was Raine, but the progress would be slow—Mycorrhiza, as every other merchant guild prioritized business that smelled like big cash. A case involving disappearing street orphans certainly didn’t.

  “I think we’ll have better luck tipping off to the Academy,” Alira said, catching up to Raine’s side. She rubbed her fingers on her lips, subconsciously pinching at the dry flakes.

  “Can’t.”

  “Why?” Alira said. She winced when she stretched her mouth to speak. She wetted her lips, tasting a little blood on them from all her picking.

  Raine cast a glance toward Alira. “Because only an idiot would believe that this would lead to finding her that without any proof.”

  That was true. She believed Raine only because he was the protagonist of the book, knowing his Protagonist Role had its magic. If he said so, it would most likely lead them to something big, even if they couldn’t find Lillian herself.

  It would be difficult, however, to convince anyone to look into random missing people, saying they might or might not find the lost count’s daughter.

  Alira’s steps came to an abrupt stop. “Wait. Wait,” she said, bursting into a fit of laughter. “Did you just call yourself an idiot? Because you believe me.”

  Raine’s jaw tightened for a brief second as he gritted out, “I don’t. Not entirely.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just enough to jump right into shit water without double confirmation,” Alira said with a snicker. Being a proven prophet was nice. It felt good to be trusted.

  Raine’s hand clenched onto the paper stack, crumbling a few at the edges. “What do you know?” he said. It sounded like a poor excuse for an attempt to defend himself.

  Alira tossed her half-braided hair behind her. “Well, for starters, I know you have a way of sneaking us out of the Academy. Something made out of wood, if I’m seeing it correctly.”

  “I don’t have it with me,” Raine said.

  Alira gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  It would be troublesome to bring a whole door to the Academy. Even if having the door meant convenient travel to the place he wanted to be the most. Hearth's Entry was another one of Raine’s many artifacts that was quite overpowered, but didn’t show up too many times because of the fact that it was a literal door that stood taller than he did.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The door’s ability to transport people around reminded Alira of her own Spirit Familiar’s spatial power. Loch, the Loch, could only transport her, its contractor, around. Moreover, the Academy also had mana detection arrays that would notice any small movement of every Spirit Familiar on its campus.

  Alira snatched a paper from the top of the stack Raine was carrying. She pulled at the sides to smooth out the creases, pressing it up close to her face in an attempt to read. The words became clear to her only when she had the paper as close as three inches away from her eyes.

  It was an announcement regarding the mandatory additional courses that the first-year students would have to take from next week onward as supplements. Their schedule was about to get much busier.

  She guessed this was the result of all the discord she had sown, and a precautionary move for the students’ safety after Lillian’s incident. In the novel, after the entire First Class was wiped out, Raine had been transferred directly to the second year, where he was forced to do both first and second year coursework.

  Physical Conditioning. Alchemy in Combat. Mages and Familiars. The Art of Coordination with Spirit Familiar. She noticed that some of the new courses normally belonged to the second-year curriculum. Physical Conditioning was an already existing module that used to be elective, and it was a mandatory core module for every student.

  All of them focused on combat and fighting. The Academy’s response to their breached defense with the cultist infiltration was to apparently improve their students’ offensive abilities.

  “Alchemy in Combat,” Alira mumbled.

  As far as she understood, alchemy, like every other skill, would level up only by doing it. For instance, Alira could cast Position Exchange far faster and further than Raine could, despite his higher Will Favorability. After all, she had been spamming it whenever she could to both save her steps and maybe save her life in the future.

  One thing Alira had come to know about Raine, not as a character in a novel but a character she had interacted with, was that he was kind of lazy. He wasn’t in a lazy and sloppy way. His laziness came from his confidence. He knew he could. So he didn’t put in effort before he needed to.

  She had to constantly push and make him feel that he had to. Which she did by nagging his ears off. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more from him.

  Alira had her face buried in the notice when she slammed into what felt like a wall.

  “Ouch,” Alira groaned, rubbing her forehead. “Why did you suddenly stop?”

  Raine didn’t turn back. “Why do I have a feeling you’re up to no good, again?” He sighed.

  Alira grinned. See. The protagonist’s gut feeling was trustworthy. “I was just thinking—”

  “No.”

  “I was thinking that even if you don’t care about Lillian—”

  Raine turned sharply, his face inches from hers. “I told you that’s not true.”

  Alira stumbled half a step back, almost tripping on her own legs, when she felt a hand on her back. She squirmed at the warmth. Raine sure seemed to be getting more comfortable. She shook the thought off and pressed on.

  “Then let’s go!” Alira urged. We have a morning alchemy practical class tomorrow, followed by an hour of alchemy combat, and after that, no one will be checking up on us until Monday afternoon class. I just have to work overtime with the Keeper to make up for my weekend shifts.”

  The new schedule was tight, but it wasn’t impossible to squeeze that in between the classes or late at night. Also, it wasn’t exactly true that no one would notice them gone. There was Maria, whom she had to deal with.

  Alira wondered for a moment if she was trying so hard, but then again, she was like this with everything. It couldn’t be helped. This was just who she was.

  Raine clicked his tongue. “Do you want to hear it in Rafelian—”

  “Don’t Ha’ek me,” Alira cut him off. “I know, I know. You still have to keep up your good boy act before you make yourself known to House Ravon. Think of it this way, if you could find Lillian before House Orllel or even the Academy could, that’s a huge accomplishment.”

  Raine’s face darkened, shadow casting on it as he bent down to meet Alira’s eyes. She could see the swirl of golden resin in his eyes at this distance or lack thereof. It would have been less intimidating if he had anger in them, but no. There was nothing.

  “You sure do know a lot,” he said, his low breath brushing off her face. “Too much, in fact.”

  Alira imagined most people would have been more unnerved. As she stood there with him looming over her...

  { In bright daylight, sweetie? Spare my innocent ears. }

  Xia’s voice rang in her head. Alira flinched and shoved Raine away as if she’d been caught fooling around by the devil on her shoulder. That guy... Xia hadn’t been very quiet these days, busy doing whatever. For some reason, he would show up every time Alira was alone with Raine, almost as if he had a sixth sense.

  Maybe he did. After all, he had been a love interest candidate for Raine in the novel. It wouldn’t be strange if he developed something toward Raine despite Alira’s intervention. She wished she could tell him that she wasn’t a threat. Even if Raine wasn’t just a character inside a novel, she still wouldn’t be one.

  Raine was seventeen at the beginning of the novel. That was a year or more younger than she was. As an older sibling, Alira preferred an older partner who would humor her and would rather not date younger people whom she might have to care for and dote on instead. She was thinking stereotypically, but all the novels she had read were to blame.

  “Ahem. So?” Alira prompted, seeing Raine still judging her without another word.

  He turned around, and Alira finally noticed they were heading to the teleportation chamber, a room with a sign so big she couldn’t miss it even with her terrible vision. Considering all the places the chamber inside the lecture halls compound was connected, he was most likely planning to head to the clubs and association building to dump the paper to be distributed. “I will think about it,” Raine said.

  Alira smiled, knowing it was basically a ‘yes’ in Raine’ese. She didn’t follow him any further, and Raine didn’t care either, disappearing into the room.

  “What was that for?” Alira asked once she was alone.

  Xia only hummed. She gazed through the window on the side of the corridor where orange light blanketed a blurry world. Her day was ending just as his began.

  “Don’t ‘hm’ at me. You have been missing since that morning two days ago. Now you show up once you hear Raine...” Alira narrowed her eyes, propping her elbows onto the window frame. “Our ‘harmonization’ rate might lower if you keep being so obvious,” she said, mostly to get back at him.

  { You accuse me. I was here the entire time as you flirted around shamelessly. }

  Alira sneered. “Yet I didn’t hear a single thing from your side? Right.”

  { Make a wild guess why this place is called the ‘Sanctum of Vacant Heart’. }

  With her full attention on his voice, Alira finally noticed the way it reverberated, echoing throughout the space. Still, she found it hard to believe that he’d been cultivating or meditating or whatever for two whole days.

  Remembering the two percent left before she could visit the Fenhua Empire, Alira recalled the small talk she’d learned to make to get along with her group assignment members.

  The other party’s interests were a good place to begin. Ask about their special interest, and act like it was yours. What a coincidence, am I right? It wasn’t like she’d studied their items, stalked their profiles, or taken note of every little thing they mentioned. Not at all.

  Alira breezed her eyes across the partial scene of the campus painted through the window. The stage of her eyesight meant everyone in uniform looked the same.

  What could she talk to Xia about for a bonding session? Ask him how many rebelling villages he’d raided this month? Or maybe about how many assassins the Empress, his aunt, had sent his way this week.

  { Planning for a stroll this weekend? Tell me. What exciting things did I miss? }

  Xia asked. For some reason, Alira found herself somewhat pissed at how the topic of conversation was always her. It was always about her and never him.

  “He doesn’t tell me a single thing about himself,” Alira grumbled under her breath. Though she understood that that was likely the best for both of them. Xia was someone out of her reach after all. She was still a bit irked about it anyway, though. “If you had been here the entire time, shouldn’t you know already?” Alira spat.

  { I wasn’t in a state where I could comprehend the things I heard. }

  She snorted but began to talk about all the unexciting things he’d missed. If this helped them become more ‘harmonized’ to attain the second stage of Two Soul, she didn’t mind talking until her mouth dried up.

  So that I could go back home, she told herself.