A certain incident took place in summer three years ago. We journeyed deep into the former imperial territory, High Mage Couren and I, on a mission to root out the Tarachians’ research program on hellions.

  From the beginning, the monsters the Empire wielded as familiars were a greater threat than their individual soldiers, and the cause to their continued winning streak in the west. Even one C-class beast could tie down a company of ordinary infantry and casualties were heavy.

  Training a Swordmaster or a High Mage took rare talent and decades of work, but in hellions, an army could gain a disposable, natural-born killer with only the effort of picking one up. The Wood was a living factory churning out beasts in virtually endless quantities. The Tarachians seemed to have chosen the best specialization, and nobody else could catch up with their expertise there.

  To make matters worse, the Empire was continuously researching methods to create even more powerful beasts by combining the traits of different breeds and magically empowering them. In the worst case, they could give rise to an abomination they couldn’t control and which would wipe out all life on the continent. That research had to be stopped and buried, at all costs. So they sent me.

  Self-sacrificing efforts by Calidea’s counterintelligence operatives led us to a major facility in the province of Idalanqo, which we destroyed, dealing a crippling blow to the warbeast supply in the mid-south. Our efforts that time partially helped the Kingdom turn the tide in the battles to come, but our success wasn't complete.

  One of the imperial top biologists, Nilos Rakhavid, escaped death.

  According to what we learned, Rakhavid was one of the chief architects behind the hellion research, with more than 40 years of work in the field. The Empire’s equivalent of our Philemon, a man of ambition and ingenuity, who loved monsters more than he cared about people. If we let him get away, the hellion program was sure to soon resume elsewhere and our hard-earned victory amounted to no more than a temporary delay in their operations.

  So we gave up on going home, to pursue Rakhavid across the land, and finally tracked him down to a town called Uruq.

  We were sure that this outward peaceful, rural settlement was used to shelter military personnel and supplies, but the operation was expertly covered up. The few enemies we caught were unimportant and knew nothing of value. The townspeople refused to sell their own, and we had no practical way to tell the disguised soldiers and scientists apart from the civilians. Rakhavid had to be somewhere in Uruq, but we didn't even know what he looked like and lacked the necessary manpower for an organized search, deep and alone in the enemy territory as we were.

  Time was about to run out.

  The Tarachian forces mustered for a large-scale counter-offensive not sixty miles north of Uruq, and our unit received orders to withdraw and regroup with the Kingdom's III Army to help push back the enemy.

  That meant letting Rakhavid slip away.

  That long chase through the hostile, scorching land, deserts without a drop of water, and labyrinthine canyons, battling venomous beasts and special forces—for nothing.

  As we left Uruq, High Mage Couren made his choice.

  Or rather, he made my choice for me.

  “9XA, this is an order——Cast Moonfall and destroy Uruq.”

  I—did my duty.

  What else could I? I was thirteen and it never occurred to me that you could say no.

  About eight hundred men, women, children, and elderly died that day by my hand. And all their cows and sheep and goats and chickens and dogs and cats and pigs. That spell spared nothing and no one. Everything, the whole area, turned to a crater of glass. Uruq ceased to exist.

  Maybe Rakhavid was there among the casualties. Maybe he wasn't.

  Maybe it was worth it. Maybe it wasn't. Who could say for sure?

  But it was a war crime, no matter which way you sliced it.

  Until then, I'd entertained childish illusions of heroism, telling myself I was only killing bad people who deserved it. Armed warriors who were prepared to die and knew the stakes. Who takes up the sword shall die by the sword. Every dead enemy was a good person spared. But the people of Uruq were almost all unarmed civilians, who were in no way involved in the fighting and didn’t want to be, and had no idea why they had to die. And then I was a criminal.

  An evil witch.

  A devil.

  Never to be a hero.

  Never to be rewarded for my battles.

  Because of that man now standing behind the lectern in his flawless suit and tie.

  Couren assumed full responsibility for the incident, as the one in charge in the field. He was expelled from Mysterium, stripped of his rank as High Mage. The Royal Army used the incident as an excuse to take custody of me, which led me to meet the General and brought us all the way to this place today…but that was all.

  The government had to condemn Couren officially, to appease our allies, but behind the scenes, the King and the Chiefs of Staff acknowledged his decision had been correct. There was never a fair court case. He got away with just a ceremonial slap on the wrist.

  I thought he’d at least have the decency to leave the country, retire somewhere far away, where he couldn’t bother anybody again, but there that man was now, with a comfortable, well-paid indoor job teaching new generations of aspiring mages. As if the whole war never happened. While I sat here shackled, a prisoner.

  Why!?

  Professor Couren proceeded with a roll call. The other students didn’t seem to find anything off about their Professor. They were only a little unnerved by his strict air. It was a class of twenty-eight all-in-all plain teenagers, subpar nobles, and gifted commoners. I hadn’t seen a normal “novice” since the early days in the facility, and studied my classmates like a collection of exotic life forms.

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  It was hard to see them as “mages” at all.

  Scanning others without permission was a hostile act and though I was confident none of the students could catch me in the act, Couren would definitely notice. So I refrained. But looking at people with just my eyes wasn't criminal.

  Everyone had to be at least Tier 2 to be here, but only a few showed residual traces clear enough to suggest heavier energy levels. A standout exception to the rest was the young child sitting on the far right edge of the hall. Her shortness and soft looks made her stick out like a lone potato in a box of cucumbers.

  “Konoron, Diar.”

  “Yes.”

  The headmaster’s granddaughter was in our class?

  You’d think she would’ve been the top-scorer, what with having the best mentor on the planet, but class B was the best she could do? Was she in the rebellious age?

  No judging a book by its cover.

  Still, Diar Konoron’s potential was not a sham. Magical energy clung to her like a thick perfume. She had to have practiced only recently. No, was she casting something even now? Some vague effect seemed to emanate from the child, but I couldn’t tell what without a closer look. She wasn’t circulating or doing anything controlled and deliberate. The girl simply seemed to leak a bit of formless mana all the time, like she’d forgotten her channel open. As if that were possible. What was up with her?

  The kid suddenly glanced back at me, annoyedly scowling, and I smoothly moved my gaze away.

  Absurdly sharp senses.

  Another student who caught my eye was a stern young lady sitting a few rows ahead, near the middle of the slope of seats. You could tell she was a noble just from her graceful posture. The commoners all leaned one way or the other, not hiding their weariness, while the aristocracy had been taught to sit ramrod-straight and mask any sign of discomfort and weakness.

  Another clear tell was her hair, black as the shadows of Tarachian nights and smooth as poured oil. She had to spend a considerable fortune in its care. Her skin hadn’t seen much sun, and her soft hands probably never held anything heavier than the pen, and couldn’t let go of it even now, afraid to miss any word of importance. The girl’s ocean-blue eyes were firmly set forward, her attention solely on the Professor, and she remained blissfully ignorant of me staring holes in her back. She may have not had much warrior instinct, but leftover mana patterned every part of her being and it was clear she never skipped a day of practice.

  “Silla, Alice.”

  “Here, sir.”

  The name didn’t ring a bell.

  I finished appraising my fellow students and concluded there weren’t Tarachian spies, or other suspicious characters hiding among them, and sat back and covered a yawn with effort. So sleepy.

  “Ruthford, Hope.”

  “Here…sir.”

  I couldn’t fully hide the murderous edge in my tone, and my classmates gave me weird looks.

  Of course, Professor Couren knew I was there already. How could he not? He’d known me since I was six. The new name or changed look couldn’t distract him for a second. Sharing the General’s name only made my real identity that much more obvious. But aloud he said nothing, made no special note of me, merely marked me as present and carried on.

  Finished with the list, he faced the class with no change in his stoic act.

  “As of this day, you are all recognized as ‘novices’ in the magic community. Novice, Third degree, by the common Mysterium ranking. In your time here, you will undertake promotion trials to upgrade your rank. You will not be able to graduate unless you make it to First degree, at the very least. Once you graduate, you will become full-fledged mages, and only those academically certified are allowed to formally name themselves ‘Mage’. Otherwise, you'll be a magician, magic-user, conjurer, witch, wizard, or whatever the like, and can be sued for fraud if you mislabel yourself. Be careful. The titles are not freely interchangeable.”

  “Sir!” A boy raised a hand.

  “Brook. What is it?”

  Memorizing mere 30 names on the spot was no trouble at all for that guy. While I hardly remembered two.

  “I’ve heard titles like blue mages or red mages, what are those? Which one is better?”

  “These titles refer to roles in organization, and are not an indication of strength. For instance, Black Mage is the formal term for war mages. Red Mage refers to a division chief in Mysterium; Blue Mage is a branch director. You don’t need to know these yet.”

  Someone else chimed in,

  “How do you become an Archmage?”

  “Raise your hand and request permission before you speak. Then stand and present your query clearly and succinctly. Otherwise, you will be penalized for disrupting class and may be removed.”

  The same young man raised his hand.

  “Yes, Raynold.”

  “So, how do you become an Archmage?”

  God, what a moron. If we were still in the army, that guy would be doing push-ups until morning. But we weren’t in the army, and Couren showed patience that I never knew he had in him. He merely rubbed the bridge of his nose irritably for a bit. Don’t tell me I unconsciously copied that gesture from him? It looked so pretentious.

  “Archmage is an honorary title bestowed for exceptional contributions to arcane fields,” he answered. “You should ask the headmaster in person, if you wish to learn more.”

  A feeble-looking boy with glasses in the left corner raised his hand. A fellow four-eyes.

  “Meldow. Speak.”

  “W-what about Cardinal Mage?” the boy named Rupert Meldow asked. “What kind of role is that?”

  Though the expression on his face didn’t visibly change, the mood about the Professor shifted distinctly. As if someone had cast a frost spell in the room, the air suddenly seemed several degrees colder and heavier and darker.

  “...Where did you hear that word?”

  “I’m sorry!” the boy reflexively apologized. “I—I just overheard somebody once mention there being Cardinal Mages in the Kingdom, but the term never came up in any of the books I read, and, so…uh…I was wondering if it was even real…”

  “…”

  The Professor held the boy with one of his trademark blank, mute stares that made you regret ever speaking and existing. I knew those stares well. But he ended up answering normally.

  “...Cardinal Mage is a special designation. It refers to a mage, whose abilities have strategic significance to the armed forces. In other words, a holder of unique techniques that can alter the flow of military campaigns. As such, their identity, number, and all information about them is strictly classified, for their protection and to preserve their role as a deterrent. Those who probe too deep into this subject may find themselves under surveillance by the authorities. I’m saying this now for your own good: do not look into it.”

  The heavy mood lifted and the lecture carried on. But the students wouldn’t quickly forget the ominous shadow that had briefly fallen on them.

  “That was so scary…!” I heard some girls whisper to each other.

  No kidding. If my real identity was exposed, my easy school life would come to a very quick stop.