EXP and leveling exists. They fluctuate, spike, plateau, and occasionally make no sense at all—which is, unironically, very faithful to the real concept of experience. You don’t grow in neat increments. You lurch forward, stall, regress, then suddenly understand something at three in the morning for no apparent reason. Triggering Magic Skills, on the other hand, is very heavy reliant on the brain (specifically the parts that recognize speech and actions).
It’s cool. Genuinely. Also deeply irritating in hindsight.
For two years at the academy, I keep wondering why the schedule is split the way it is—six hours of morning classes, five hours of afternoon practical magic. Languages, history, arithmetic shoved into the first half of the day like mandatory vegetables, then the fun part later. Given that the Continent is very publicly having a hard time dealing with demons (as of now we have, like, four years left), you’d think they’d prioritize survival skills. Shorten the lectures. Trim the fluff. Four hours of basics would still be enough to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and not embarrassing yourself in public, then pour the rest into magic combat applications. Train adventurers. Train soldiers.
That was my opinion. Past tense.
Time, as it turns out, is an excellent rebuttal.
Somewhere between advanced arithmetics and applied sigil theory, it clicks. Mathematics—dry, joyless, unforgiving mathematics—isn’t just academic filler. It’s structural. Offensive Magic Skills, especially, are less about raw output and more about ratios, vectors, timing windows. Trajectories. Energy distribution. Physiques principles that don’t care whether the force comes from gunpowder or Magical Energy.
Take Flameblast, for example—a basic skill that lets you hurl a flaming sphere from your palms. Its maximum effective range is fixed at five meters, no matter your level. Size and speed don’t scale with “resolve” or “intuition”—they follow hard formulas, which stops being surprising the moment I discover that Magical Energy here is measured in watts and joules like electricity.
A ball of flame’s size depends on how much Magical Energy you channel, rooted in the volume of a sphere: V = (4/3)πR3. Suppose I want a ball of flame with a 0.3-meter radius. Plugging that in gives a volume of roughly 0.113 m3 (calculated as (4/3)×π×(0.3)3 ≈ 0.113).
Next, power relates to the flame’s energy density. Hydrocarbon flames typically release energy at a rate of 1–3 megawatts per cubic meter; for simplicity, let’s use 2 MW/m3 (or 2×10? W/m3). To generate a flame of that volume, the required power is:
P (power) = Energy density × Volume
So P ≈ 2e6 (Math notation for 2 × 10?) W/m3 × 0.113 m3 = 226,000 W (226 kW).
Two hundred twenty-six kilowatts. That’s just to exist. Now it has to move.
Motion needs force. Force means overcoming resistance—drag, to be precise—and the universe doesn’t cut corners. For a spherical projectile at low speed over short range, drag force works out to roughly 2 newtons (let’s say 2.1 N to be precise).
Power for propulsion follows P = F (force) × v (velocity). If I want the flaming ball moving at 5 meters per second (about 18 km/h—fast enough to catch most off guard), that adds:
P ≈ 2.1 N × 5 m/s = 10.5 W (we can round to ~10 W).
So the full breakdown is clear:
- ~226 kilowatts to shape and sustain the flame.
- ~10 watts to send it flying.
This, of course, hints that inexperienced combatants blow themselves up sometimes. They pour everything into the fire and forget the math. Or worse, misunderstand it.
Of course, nobody in a real fight pauses to run volumetric integrals while something sharp is trying to rearrange their organs. Combat brains don’t do spreadsheets. What they do instead is pattern recognition. Muscle memory. Heuristics. You internalize the fundamentals—how energy behaves, how force transfers, how shape affects outcome—and the calculations collapse into intuition. The brain stops solving and starts remembering, the same way fingers remember how to draw a bow or legs remember how to land without shattering something important.
Once the formula is learned deeply enough, it stops being math and becomes motion. You can alter a Magic Skill mid-use because your mind already knows where the numbers want to go.
It reminds me of that one gag about a certain spider-themed superhero supposedly calculating pendulum physics every time he swings between buildings. Which some are quick to point out that he’s not solving equations at terminal velocity, he understands, on a gut level, how swinging works—period, tension, momentum—so the movement feels natural. Confidence comes from comprehension, not computation.
Magic here is a lot like gymnastics. People without a firm grasp of inertia and velocity are far more prone to injury than those who do.
Even my apparently worthless Distort hinges on math, just not as aggressively. It’s not offensive, so the tolerances are forgiving. Still, my basic grasp of scalar quantities lets me bend it enough to obey a very specific application.
That said, as I sit here with my blank parchment trying to solve this riddle to open up the Covenant, I can’t help but think…
“I wish I was good at math!” Ray groans, flinging his parchment into the air.
What flutters back down onto the table are not formulas so much as distressed symbols pretending to be equations. He ruffles his slicked-back hair and slumps.
“Screw this. I can’t even get past the first section.”
He’s not wrong. I complain—frequently—about Ray’s complaining, a personality trait cultivated by privilege and polished by laziness. But this time, the frustration is earned.
Because whoever this Giasone Hero was, he had to be sick in the head to design a puzzle that counts magical beasts while shoehorning fractions into it like it’s a personal vendetta against everyone.
FUCK! I WISH I WAS GOOD IN MATH, INDEED!
I recall the first part of the god-forsaken riddle—
My brain immediately tries to translate it into something sane. Variables. Let golden be G, shadow be S, rune be R, horn-hided be H, storm-swirl be—nope, abort. There are too many fractions stacked like unstable Jenga blocks. This isn’t math; it’s psychological warfare disguised as livestock accounting.
I get physics. I really do. But give me a naked fraction without a unit attached and my confidence evaporates on a personal level.
“Done—!” Mark says.
I look up. He’s smiling. Not a polite smile. Not his restrained, cool one either. A triumphant smile. Which is rare enough that it physically startles me.
“The first and second part, at least.”
Joshua lets out a low, genuinely impressed hum. Ray, meanwhile, goes pale, his mouth hangs open, parchment forgotten in his hand.
Curiosity gets me. Of course it does. Knowledge is a gravitational force I’ve never been good at resisting.
I lift my parchment and give it a small wave. “I’m stuck on the first part. How did you even solve it—and the second one too?”
Mark’s brows rise. “That’s a surprise. I know you’re not exactly… fluent with math, but I didn’t expect you of all people to miss it entirely.”
He raises his parchment, and I’m greeted by an orderly battlefield of letters and numbers. Variables stacked neatly. Fractions declawed and pinned in place. It’s beautiful in the same way a well-organized crime scene is beautiful—everything terrible has already happened, but at least it’s legible.
“First,” he says, “I renamed everything. HG for golden-bristled, HD for shadow-maned, HH for horn-hided, HS for storm-swirl. Then I rewrote the riddle as equations instead of prose. Prose lies.”
I lean closer. Beneath the equations is a simplified form, HG has been replaced by a strange symbol—?—and HH is simply… one.
“Huh,” I mutter. “So you assigned a symbol to one unknown—golden-bristled—and gave the horn-hided an arbitrary value of one?”
The curiosity spike is immediate and violent. I glance around, nearly lunging for the nearest writing instrument before stopping myself when I catch Belladonna watching us with open amusement.
“Hey,” I say, reining myself in, “you have pencils lying around here, right?”
“Oh? Those graphite pens?” She tilts her head, genuinely puzzled. “We did not bring them. They are ill-suited for formal documentation, so we carry ink fountain pens instead. Are they not to your liking?”
Not really.
“If they are, I wouldn’t be asking for a pencil.”
Crap. I swapped my thoughts and dialogue.
The men around us tense. Leyni looks ready to combust again. The air tightens—
—and then Genovefa steps in, calm as snowfall. She presses a half-used pencil into my hand.
“Do your utmost diligent,” she says.
“Thank—” I catch myself. “Thank you.”
I turn back to my parchment and try Mark’s approach. Arbitrary constants. One unknown anchor. Everything else expressed relative to it. And as I do, something clicks—a memory.
A dusty corner of my old school library. Earth. A book on a certain set of solutions that looked like algebra’s great great great grandfather. This is the same logic. Strip away the animals. Strip away the poetry. Reduce the world to symbols and let algebra do the walking.
So I substitute. Normalize. Chase fractions until they stop running. Then multiply everything by the least common denominator to burn the fractions out of existence entirely.
The numbers settle.
“…Six thousand six hundred ninety-seven heierun?” I murmur.
Mark chuckles softly. “Six thousand three hundred. Approximately.”
I’M WAY OFF! NOT EVEN NEAR THE MARGIN OF ERROR!
I shake my head slowly, wounded. “You did the same thing for the s?hrímnir, I assume?”
“Yeah. It’s worse,” Mark says without ceremony. “You need the relative counts of each heierun color first before you can even start scaling the s?hrímnir. Tedious doesn’t begin to cover it. Still…” He shrugs. “I ended up with more than fifty million in total. Both beasts combined.”
“““That’s a LOT!”””
Belladonna glides closer. She scans our parchments one by one, eyes moving with practiced ease, then hums in approval. “It’s still the first day of your attempt. Barely an hour and a half has passed, and yet two parts already lie solved. Impressive, Sir Mark.”
She folds her arms—and then looks directly at me.
Not Ray. Not Joshua. Me.
“But the first two portions are not especially troublesome. Even the Kingdom’s scholars have unraveled the third. Pray, do persist.”
Why she says that while staring only at me will remain a mystery until the day I die. Possibly after, too. I sigh and turn back to my parchment.
Fifty million beasts. More than that apparently…
That number alone makes my temples ache. And we’re not even done. There’s still the third and fourth parts—one demanding a perfect square, the other a triangular number.
“Just how big is the final answer?” Ray mutters, slumping forward until his forehead meets the desk. “I feel like my energy got drained.”
“So dramatic,” Joshua says, not unkindly. “Let’s work together. We can’t let Mark carry everything.”
“But I don’t even know how to solve the first two!” Ray snaps. “What do you expect me to do for the rest?!”
That’s a problem.
If we rely solely on Mark—because he’s the only one of us who’s academically competent enough to wrestle this thing alone—he’ll burn out. Hard. Then we’ll stall, regroup, try again… and repeat the same failure loop. Different day, same exhaustion.
This is bad.
I raise a finger before anyone can spiral further. “How about this.”
They all look at me. Even Ray, mid-frown.
“Whoever opens the Covenant gets everything inside. All the loot. After that, it’s their choice what—if anything—they share.”
They tense. Not badly. Sharply. Like a bowstring pulled just enough to sing.
Ray’s the exception. He jabs a finger at me, his other hand slamming onto the desk hard enough to rattle inkpots. “You just want the OP items inside that fancy box, don’t you?!”
I recoil on instinct. “We don’t even know what’s in there. All we know is that it’s valuable enough for some crackhead hero to slap an unholy math curse on it. And besides—I’m just as clueless as you are!”
That’s not even the real point. By agreeing to that rule, everyone’s incentivized to work independently. Different approaches. Different mistakes. Different angles. Even a marginal increase in probability matters when brute force is off the table. I might walk away empty-handed—and yeah, that stings—but the real objective isn’t loot. It’s opening the box.
Call it a heuristic. Or a gamble. Same thing, different coat.
“Fuck,” Ray mutters, then straightens. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
Just like that, the three of them return to scribbling. Pages fill. Pens scratch. Mark sinks back into his numbers like a man reentering deep water. Joshua leans over his work, thoughtful. Ray… suffers loudly but productively.
As for me—
I’m not bad at math. I’m just bad at this kind of math. So instead of forcing it, I pivot. Different angle. Different vector. If the front door is welded shut, you look for vents.
I turn toward Genovefa, who’s speaking quietly with Leyni.
“Hey,” I call, keeping my tone casual. “Can I see Giasone’s diary?”
She glances at me, amused. “Hmm? Did I not say you must kneel and lick my shoe for such a favor?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Just hand it over.”
She sighs, long and theatrical, then slips back into her usual calm before producing a small pocket journal and passing it to me. “The scholars have already examined it. They found nothing of note.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Because puzzles like this aren’t always solved with numbers. Sometimes they yield only when you understand the sort of mind arrogant—or unhinged—enough to write them in the first place.
“…I see. Let us meet again some other time.” I dip into a practiced curtsy, light and precise. The gentleman laughs—politely, harmlessly—and takes his leave with a flourish of his hand.
Only then do I release the breath I had not realized I was holding.
Hours of this. Smiles measured to the width of a blade. Words weighed, never spoken raw. It is… tiring. Still, the sun droops low, bleeding amber through the tall windows. I need only endure a little longer.
“Iustitia, ya look like ya just survived a right proper ordeal.”
Lady Eris slips in beside me, all heat and noise where I am porcelain restraint. One brow arches; her grin is sharp with mischief.
“Anothair impetuous punk thinkin’ himself worthy of yo’ hand, I reckon? Ya got a heart o’ gold, cher, too much kindness for ya own good. Me? I’d a’ given dat pompous fop a tongue-lashin’ somethin’ fierce—thinkin’ his pretty face ’n’ noble birthright give him leave to court me willy-nilly, sans prior acquaintance or whatnot—mm… It’s downright absurd!”
“Calm yourself. When angry, you are harder to comprehend than the Heroes.”
“It cain’t be helped! Ya keep lettin’ yourself be a target fer—”
“I understand. Truly. Pray, do not be wroth.”
She huffs and turns away, arms crossed tight against her chest. It never ceases to astonish me how one born of noble blood may comport herself so freely. At times, I envy her. To be crude. Brusque. Unfiltered. I wish to be the same sometimes—to speak as the heart moves without the ever-present specter of the Asbj?rn name looming overhead… what a dangerous luxury that would be.
I reach for a small plate and fork, claiming a slice of chocolate cake—one of the foreign confections brought by the previous Heroes. Its scent is rich, unfamiliar. I pare off a modest bite and spear it neatly, lifting it toward my lips—
—only to pause.
Eris keeps glancing about. Not aimlessly. Searching. Her eyes skim the hall again and again, cutting through the mess of mingled chatter, music, and lacquered smiles.
“What troubles you?”
“Ah—?!” She yelps, color blooming upon her cheeks. “Nothin’! Ain’t nothin’ wrong—just… keepin’ an eye out fer some punk, is all.”
“A… punk?”
If I remember correctly…
“Sir Shin Verschlinger?” I ask, slipping the cake into my mouth.
“Yes. That messy-lookin’ twit.”
Ever since two years past—since our abduction—Lady Eris has been placed beneath suffocating security by the Dekeysers. She has scarcely been allowed a step unguarded. Even in my company, escorts cling like shadows. Given her nature—adventurous, reckless, gloriously impolite—I feared she would chafe herself raw against such constraints.
Yet, to my surprise, she has found a pastime—watching a crimson-haired boy.
The very same boy Princess Genovefa is forced to lodge with. The same who, despite sharing our age, helped guide the adventurers to the barn wherein we were kept. The same who bore the responsibility of a Hero unwillingly, and yet acted when inaction would have been far easier.
He did not save us directly—not as the masked vigilante did—but effort carries weight of its own. Responsibility forced upon unwilling shoulders often breeds resentment. He chose instead to move.
That, above all, is why I am grateful to him.
I have never voiced this aloud. I suspect I need not. Some understandings do not require sound.
Even so… I find no reason for this level of attention. Which leaves only one conclusion…
I tilt my head, studying her carefully. “Do you fancy him?”
She near leaps out of her skin like a scalded cat, face flushing crimson—properly, spectacularly red. The reaction is so abrupt it borders on theatrical. Adorable, despite myself.
“D—d—do not jest so!” she splutters. “Whatever prompted such whimsy?! Compared to the many esteemed gentlemen of Heroic calibre—or even the average men of our academy—he scarcely registers. A paltry specimen, wholly unworthy of my notice or standards!”
“I am not so certain of that…”
You are far more dishonest than the rest of the Dekeysers, after all.
She spins away and seizes a mug of fermented basilisk—wait—!
“E—Eris—?!”
Too late. She drains it in one brutal pull, as though attempting to drown an incriminating thought. The mug thuds back onto the table.
She exhales sharply. “Ya got a problem with it, or what?”
“No. It is merely—”
“I get it, I get it,” she interrupts, waving a dismissive hand. “You’re far too stiff, Iustitia. Always wound tight.”
I open my mouth to retort, then stop.
“Anyway,” she continues, grabbing a fried shrimp from a tray and tossing it into her mouth, speaking through the crunch, “if you’re bored, go dance. Or chatter with them noble punks. That’s what this shindig’s for.”
Did you not, mere moments ago, admonish me for being too lenient with noblemen?
“Whatever. I feel like I already know why.”
“Hey—do not speak as though I truly fancy him—”
She stops.
So does… everyone.
The hall dies mid-breath.
At first, I think it merely a lull in music, some misstep by the performers—but no. This is different. The mirth that filled the chamber a heartbeat ago does not fade; it is cut. Sound itself recoils. Conversations freeze half-formed. Laughter curdles on lips that never finish the shape.
Cold seeps in.
Not the gentle chill of evening air, but something invasive, as though warmth itself has been peeled from the room. I see instructors stiffen, alumni pale, their faces caught in expressions of naked horror. No one speaks. No one moves.
Why… why does no one speak?
I slowly lower my plate onto the table, though my fingers refuse to loosen from the fork. My grip is white-knuckled, instinctive.
“Eris,” I murmur, keeping my voice low, steady. “What is happening?”
“Cain’t ya feel it?!” she hisses.
Feel—?
My question dies unspoken as the world takes on a red tint, thin at first, like light through bloodied glass, then deeper. Heavier. In that instant, every hair upon my body stands on end. A vile prickle creeps along my spine, deliberate and intimate, like something learning the shape of me.
Powerlessness crashes down. Not the helplessness of ropes that drank our Magical Energy two years past. That had been external. Mechanical. This—
This feels absolute.
I glance at my palm and instinctively will Magical Energy into it, expecting the familiar firmness, the subtle resistance.
Nothing. No warmth. No pressure. No response.
“My Energy… It is… gone?”
“Indeed, chérie… Same wit’ myself. I’d been enhancin’ ma eyesight since earlier, den it ceased functionin’ abruptly. Clearly, somethin’ is amiss—”
The words have barely left her mouth when the world shatters.
Glass explodes inward as the towering windows burst as one. My breath catches, my ears ring, and instinct sends my gaze snapping upward with the rest of the hall.
Figures stand framed by broken panes.
Masked. Dressed in black.
Bows drawn. Crossbows leveled. Battlerifles gleaming with dull menace.
Recognition hits me like a blade to the gut.
Those men. The same ones.
The bandits from years ago!
My other arm rises on instinct, dragging Eris behind me as my grip on the fork flips into a reverse hold. I do not yet understand what is happening—only that it is happening, and that this time I refuse to stand frozen as I once did. Not again.
A fork. That is all I hold. Laughable. I scan the table with a flicker of desperation, wishing for a knife—even a service blade would suffice. Still, logic presses in despite the panic. They are few. A dozen at most. We are hundreds—students, instructors, alumni. Armed or not, they are outnumbered.
Whoever they are—whatever grievance festers in their hearts—they have crossed the line.
Their lives are forfeit.
This is not like before where I—
The great double doors slam open.
Not a dozen—hundreds.
They flood the hall like a black tide, blades drawn, boots pounding stone. Some swords burn with flame—Magic Skills, active. Functional. My stomach drops.
“How—” The word dies in my throat.
At their center strolls an old man, unmasked. Brown hair streaked with white, his face a tapestry of scars—monster-made, not ornamental. A veteran. Not a zealot. Worse.
Screams erupt. Students scatter. Panic ignites faster than fire.
Step. Step.
Through the chaos, I hear something behind us. Heavy. Close.
I turn, yanking Eris with me, and fling my plate on reflex. It shatters against a man’s guard, startling him just long enough. I bolt past his flank—
—and memory slams into me.
Two years ago. The barn. The ropes. The masked vigilante. A boy our age, fighting grown men with terrifying calm. The way he moved.
The world slows. Adrenaline, no doubt.
The man wears only a short cuirass. Full armor is costly; bandits favor speed and economy. That leaves gaps. Gaps are invitations.
“Brat!” he roars, arms wide, lunging to seize me.
I leap and duck, letting momentum carry me low and past. I overshoot—end up behind his right side—but inertia is a language I understand. A sharp pivot corrects my line. The fork aligns beneath his ribs, just under the diaphragm.
I brace my off-hand against the handle and drive it forward with everything I have.
The strike lands.
He howls, body jerking in shock. Even beneath the mask, I see his face twist in disbelief. Not enough enhancement. Not enough reinforcement. He thought me harmless.
Because I am a girl.
“Do not underestimate me!” I seize his cuirass, wrench him down, and swing my fist into his temple. He crumples, unconscious—or close enough.
Pain explodes through my hand.
I gasp, shaking it, heat flooding my knuckles. So this is how it feels to strike without Magical Energy. Bone meeting bone. Flesh unsoftened by power.
It hurts.
But I am standing… And this time, I am not helpless.
The screaming snaps back into focus—the chaos rushing in like sound after a held breath.
Ah. Right—
I turn sharply to Eris. “Please, you must—”
“No need ta tell me!” she snaps, already in motion. She dives beneath a table, yanking the long tablecloth down so it spills like a curtain of fabric and shadow, a crude but effective screen.
A smile threatens despite everything. Trust Eris to adapt instantly.
I turn back to the fallen man. He still breathes—ragged, shallow—but he lives. Incapacitated. Not dead. Ever since witnessing the masked vigilante fight, I have… studied. Anatomy, weak points, leverage. Still, luck favored me. A liver strike. Had my angle been poorer, had he don a different armor—
My hands tremble.
I curl my fingers tight around the fork until the shaking stills. How did he do it? Again and again, with such composure. At our age. Two years ago. Barely thirteen, facing grown men without hesitation.
Calm yourself, Iustitia. Hold your ground.
That is precisely why.
I never imagined my third-year graduation celebration would be interrupted by a bandit assault. The absurdity almost stings. Silk and silver traded for blood and broken glass.
I straighten, shoulders squaring despite the pounding of my heart.
I am an Asbj?rn—of a house entrusted by the Crown.
“For my family’s name, I shall not be a liability.”
I’ve been buried in Giasone’s diary for hours now, the brittle pages whispering dust and disappointment, while the other three pace, argue, and slowly cook their brains over the riddle.
Most of this thing is useless.
Page after page of mundane monthly notes. Weather complaints. Supply tallies. Long, indulgent tangents about how this world resembles Earth in oddly specific, deeply unhelpful ways. I skim hard, skip harder. If this were a novel, half of it would be trimmed by a merciless editor with a red pen and a grudge.
Hope thins. An uncomfortable thought creeps in—that I might actually be dead weight here.
Then, finally, something bites.
His last proper entry.
Before we embark north—to confront the demons head-on, purge the source of their existence, and perhaps discover a way home—I will leave behind several possessions. Items that may prove useful should the Continent summon another set of Heroes in the likely event of our deaths.
Cheery fellow.
However, I am painfully aware that such objects may fall into the wrong hands. Thus, I will place them within the Chest of Covenant—a rare container rumored to be fashioned from the Land God’s skin and bones. Indestructible.
Of course it is.
Its lock shall be the modified Guardian of All, infused with a mathematical problem framed as a riddle.
There it is.
Whoever opens it—alone or together—will demonstrate a superior mode of thought. To them, I entrust these remnants, and with them, our legacy… and our journey home, should we perish.
A pause in the ink. The handwriting loosens.
Which is highly likely lol.
I snort despite myself.
…
Then, the final line.
I feel a bit lonely…
That one lands softer. Heavier. A man at the edge of the world, joking into the void.
Still—after all that… Nothing concrete. No numbers. No formula. No hint. Just lore thick enough to choke a dragon. Exposition sludge. Zero actionable insight. Fantastic.
I sigh and lean back, eyes burning. Until I remember something else—
Earlier entries discusses a certain fixation. Repeated, almost obsessive references to The Sand Reckoner—Archimedes’ old thought experiment from the third century BC. A mad attempt to calculate how many grains of sand it would take to fill the universe. The kind of problem that laughs at common sense.
Archimedes had to invent a new number system just to express the answer—powers of a myriad, ten to the fourth. Numbers so large they stop feeling like quantities and start feeling like philosophy.
I don’t remember the final value. Just that it was absurd. Cosmically so.
Which hints that he was obsessed with big numbers. With systems that break when scale explodes. With minds willing to chase meaning past the edge of practicality.
I exhale slowly.
And here I thought I was the unhinged hobbyist… Turns out Giasone was an entirely different breed.
I feel a bit lonely…
That line rings in me all of a sudden.
I never met the man. He lived and bled in this world long before we were dragged into it. And yet, I hear it—not just in his voice, but in mine. The same quiet hitch between bravado and resignation.
And so, my brain started to entertain meaningless thoughts, one I had once pressed down—smothered with pragmatism and logic untill it disappeared as they hinder my living performance. Now it’s here…
What was Giasone feeling when he wrote that?
Standing on the edge of the north, knowingly setting his odds to zero for the slimmest chance of saving a world that wasn’t even his—and maybe, impossibly, finding a way home. Was it fear? Resolve? Or that peculiar exhaustion that comes when you’ve decided to be brave and there’s nothing left to debate?
Will I feel the same…?
In stories like this—once we graduate, assuming we live that long—we set out on our own journeys. We grow stronger. We defend against demon waves pouring out of portals like open wounds in reality. Along the way, we make friends. Enemies too. That’s the part people like—the escapade they call “adventure.”
It reads well in paperbacks.
But stories always skip the thinning. The quiet subtraction. Familiar faces vanishing between chapters. Names turning into memories you carry instead of voices you hear. I can already see it, clear as ink bleeding through parchment. A long road that narrows no matter how wide it begins.
I wonder if Giasone was already alone when he wrote that line.
Or if loneliness arrived early—and simply never left.
Will I… fell lonely too?
Will I go back to the way I used to?
On my own.
Shouldering unseen demons…
I—!
“Damn it!” Ray snaps, loud enough to crack the fog in my head.
I flinch and look up. Joshua is glaring at the floating interface, its symbols pulsing an angry red. Wrong answer.
“So Ray and Joshua struck out,” I mutter, rubbing my temple as I glance at Mark. “You wanna give it a shot?”
He shakes his head, exasperation written across his face. “My answer’s still incomplete. This… this thing is massive. Feels like the answer wants to be infinity itself.”
Ray points a finger at himself. “That’s what I tried! The interface isn’t just numbers—it’s letters too, so I figured, why not? Infinity. Glowed red.”
Joshua slumps further into his chair. “I… I tried a number I somehow calculated. You already know what happened.”
Well. There’s always next week.
I stretch, letting my shoulders pop. “Mark… what got you stuck?”
He groans. “Ran into something that looks like… a Pell equation.”
Uwah. A Pell equation? Without a calculator? Nevermind calculator—the already astronomical magnitude of the numbers we’re dealing with means…
“Don’t we… need a supercomputer at this point?”
“Super… kompyutur?” Belladonna echoes, eyebrow arched.
Genovefa, however, lights up as if a bulb appeared above her head. “I don’t know about a supercomputer, but I did see ‘computer’ mentioned once in Giasone’s diary! Isn’t it… some contraption? Something that can do a lot of things?”
Uwah, vague. Hold on, why does she look like that when talking about Giasone? This is the first time I’ve seen her like this. Is she actually a fangirl of his?!
I clear my throat. “Well… yeah. You’re not wrong. They’re incredible machines. Usually government-run or handled by innovation bureaus. They can—”
“Doesn’t that just mean we’ll never solve this?” Ray cuts in, snorting.
Silence follows like a dropped blade. Our faces tighten, grimaces settling as reality presses in. Even Belladonna, ever poised to tease, holds back. We are the ones they trust—perhaps the only ones who could even hope to open the Covenant. What lies within is meant to aid each of us in our journey as Heroes.
She exhales, soft and measured. “Take not this to heart so heavily. There shall be other opportunities, Heroes.” Her gaze drifts over us, gentle, motherly, almost unnervingly so. “Take rest.”
The four of us exchange looks. Nod. Mark begins stacking his ongoing solutions.
“We can try again another time.”
“Yeah. No need to rush.”
Four years ahead. Enough time to think, strategize, and—eventually—solve it, no matter how long will be the final answer. We’re students of a well-off school back on Earth after all. So we settle on a simple, defiant plan:
“We’ve spent two years away from danger. Let’s abuse the rest of these uneventful school years to open that goddamn box.”
“““Yeah!”””
Relief spreads, low and warming—through Leyni, through the men lingering in the corners who despise my guts, even through Ray’s grumbling.
“Precisely,” Belladonna affirms, clapping once. “We shall retrieve the Covenant and return next week. Another attempt awaits—”
Her voice cuts off, her hand snapping to a grip on a non-existent scabbard.
Every head turns, tension coiling tight. Out the window, the grand hall—site of our graduation ceremony—sits a few meters away, normally serene. But my breath catches.
A translucent dome, immense and shimmering, encases the building. The entrance stands wide open, flanked by black-clad figures, weapons glinting.
This…
“Just when I thought we might be free of danger…”
“Impossible…!”
Belladonna’s voice has changed—an edge of fear I’ve never heard before. Hearing her voice adopt a different tone made ME terrified.
“What’s wrong?”
“Knave! Don’t you feel it?” Leyni’s roar slices the air, finger jabbing at the dome. “It’s a demonic barrier!”
…
“Huh?”