14th October, 1137

  Suiming

  “Sir, admit it, you’ve lost,” Kaspar said, kneeling while his body was bleeding out. Blood pooling into a small puddle as his torso was colored by the scarlet of his own blood, staining the complex, almost ethereal complex pattern on his body. Despite the injury, Kaspar still maintained his unpleasant smile. He pulled a needle from his back pocket, still maintaining eye contact with Suiming, and injected its silver-like content into his thigh.

  Suiming’s injury wasn’t better in any way. Kaspar’s beams, although weaker, were still able to penetrate the defense Suiming weaved from his constellations. His clothes were torn again, soaked in his blood. I’ll need some new clothes…Perhaps I should go to a tailor.

  “Nah, you look at yourself, mate. You’ve over-cast your Realm-art while I and Seren can beat you like a breeze,” Suiming said. He ripped off his sleeve, and Seren helped him to stop the bleeding on his shoulder. The pain eased a bit while Suiming tried to spot any hidden tricks Kaspar was hiding.

  “…Kaspar…Kaspar, I just don’t understand, what is that drive in you? And how is Silvia in your way?”

  “Existences, books, what do they have in common?”

  “If you eat too much of it, your stomach will hurt. Speaking from experience,” Suiming interrupted.

  “…That is a new perspective, Sir. Do you believe the world is unexplainable with the human mind?”

  “Not yet,” Suiming answered.

  “We need to let go of the worship, but to turn that into curiosity, Existences…they are the only ones who could explain the unexplained, like a teacher explaining alkali metals’ violent blooming with water.”

  “And?”

  “Her path, whether successful or not, leads to another age of clueless wandering in the mist of the Realm,” Kapar said.

  “As said by the Senhashian explorer Akimitsu after an attempt to explore the Realm: ‘don’t chase the Realm, for it is built on meaningless lunacy’…I shall follow the path of the fool, the sinner, the sage, and show us a new path, a path where we are guided,” Kaspar said while Suiming noticed that his wounds had healed up completely. Just as ignorant as he was…if not more, Suiming thought.

  “…This isn’t what he would have wanted. Also, using that drug, you’re risking catching multiple medically interesting conditions. Do you want to be a case study of the Medical University of Aloisa so badly?”

  Kaspar frowned as his eyes flashed and stared at Suiming. He muttered something, but it was muffled and quiet. While Kaspar was saying the things to himself, Suiming observed the patterns on his torso clearly. The intertwined, complex, and almost occult patterns bore no resemblance to Siyuenese talismans and runes, also different from Treisaulian raksti. But he could tell that the pattern originated from the seal The First Mephisto made, with some tweaks to its details to be suited for human implant.

  It seemed to Suiming that it was etched into his body with a different material rather than the common ones used for the Realm-art implant. It was dark, the same hue of the wound Suiming had when Nameless’s creation pierced through his stomach. While Suiming was going through the list of possible materials and memorizing the pattern, Seren whispered:

  “I think it’s time we…”

  “Not yet…I need the guy living and kicking,” Suiming answered.

  “Seren…something you still think like a messenger, stop that,” Suiming said. Before he could crack a smile, he sensed a flux in Realm-art. That distant yet familiar flux of the artifact carved out of a strange and exotic stone. With a name matching its past and origin.

  The Crown of Sinner grew on Kaspar’s head. Bright, white light blinded Suiming’s eyes. The last thing he saw was Seren reaching for Kaspar. It felt like looking directly into the sun after staying in darkness for too long. Afterimage burned on his eyes while Suiming struggled to see anything at all.

  Minutes passed until his vision returned; he counted it, three minutes and seventeen seconds.

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  He turned to Seren as he stood up his muscles were hurting, and he felt pain from his wounds. Seeing him walking, Seren stopped balancing her pen on her upper lip as she came over to help him.

  …

  Seren

  After aiding Suiming to Silvia’s apartment and treating his wounds, she rested on the sofa as she contemplated the battle. It was long after she felt confusion from an opponent’s power. Her duel with Nameless was for the thrill, and she didn’t plan to comprehend her powers anyway. But Kaspar, his power was much more grounded, but his intentions? The visit to the fallen flesh of the Starseeker was suspicious enough, whether he did what he planned or not; in the worst case, he may be trying to summon the Starseeker, and the Starseeker was never an Existence that could be easily pleasured. She would hate to see the flame burn and the blue blood spray over the land again.

  As she almost fell asleep, Seren heard the door open. Silvia walked in and opened the balcony window. A cold breeze came in, brushing Seren’s face, while the cold reminded her of the night she bore her name.

  “…Silvy, can I stroll along when you go to your professor?” Seren asked, her eyes closed as she lay carelessly on the couch. She rested her arms over her head.

  “Na ja… I don’t think that is a problem, you can come along, just don’t overstay, otherwise the security might notice you.”

  “But doesn’t Professor Suiming need someone to look after him?”

  “He’ll be good on his own, won’t die, I promise.”

  Seren sat up on the couch as she stared at Silvia. Her stare lasted long enough for Silvia to look away and scratch her arm. A blush bubbled up on Silvia’s face.

  “Silvy, what is it like to be a student?” Seren asked.

  Silvia’s eyes swayed as she stuttered to answer. After mumbling something in Auderheimian, possibly trying to translate some long words into Euthian, at least from what Seren could hear from her mumbling.

  “…It’s…self-contradicting.”

  “You are doing what you love, you are striving for your goal…but every assignment, every morning alarm…makes you want to sleep away the days you dreamed so much when you were in secondary school…” Silvia answered, looking at Seren. Her gray eyes seemed so tired, yet it looked like a shining dream hid behind her pupils.

  “Why did you study Realmlore? It doesn’t pay well as long as I know.”

  “When I was little…I lived in an agricultural village twenty kilometers east of Rinstadt…The thing with Auderheim is that Remnant tide swallows the smaller villages, but somebody has to grow crops. So we live there, those who could not take care of themselves move temporarily into the cities, those who could remain.”

  “So the sight of Remnant tide’s aftermath was never strange to me. I used to wander in the ceasetide, collecting pebbles and whatever looked fun; that’s when I met him. He was…young, that’s all I could remember.”

  “…I can’t remember his face…but he showed me how to make ink…well…fuel for runes, although modern runes don’t use that kind of fuel anymore,” Silvia said, her body loosening up as she let go of her hand on her arm.

  “Fun. What did he write to teach you, if you remember?” Seren asked as she rested her chin on her hands, body leaning forward.

  Silvia looked out the window. The leaves hung on the trees’ tips, like crackling edges of a hearth’s flame. Wind blew them away as Seren could almost smell the crisp air and feel the cold winds that made her wish to put on a scarf. She could have mistaken this scene for the peaceful days a few years ago, before she became the Letter-Writer.

  As Seren was dazed, looking out the window, Silvia responded:

  “…To travel is to love, to reach the destination is to rest for the next voyage.”

  Silvia smiled. She looked out the window again. Seren saw the shadows cast on the balcony as she realized that they should get going.

  …

  “How do I look?” Seren asked, buttoning up the lab coat. She tied her hair into a bun while wearing a pair of non-prescription glasses. Under the lab coat was a warm, woolen sweater she bought that was made by a fisherman’s wife. Seren didn’t remember the fisherman’s family, only that their smoked cod was very tasty and that they were amicable.

  “You look great,” answered Silvia, walking up the stairs.

  This was the first time she visited the University of Three Crowns. The building was elegantly built. Parts of it were a visibly newer addition to the university, as the main building and entrance were worn down by time, and the statues of the patrons rusted, covered in the green shade that blended in with the light, reddish brown of the building. Students walked past the statues as if they were their peers too. People laughing with friends, people looking relieved or tired. It was a small world shoved into a building.

  Wind rustled the fallen leaves, only this time, Seren felt not the cold, but the scent of a passerby’s coffee, the overheard echoes of frustration for exams. She heard and felt things she would otherwise never have felt. Seren searched for memories, hoping that she’d find something in the young lady whom she inherited the name and body of…but there was nothing.

  Seeing that Silvia was waiting for her by the entrance, Seren rushed after her.

  Despite the exterior, the interior of the university was much blander than she had imagined. Mostly plain white with stripes of color and posters, and infographics stuck on the wall.

  They walked to room one-thirty-seven, and Silvia knocked on the door. The response came almost instantly. It was the familiar voice of Tavia, only much quieter.

  Silvia opened the door, ever so gently as if not to wake up a cat from its nap. And Seren saw her. The once youthful face had now wrinkled, and her golden hair had faded into silver, a different kind of silver, of Silvia’s or Acryl’s silver hair. It was…stiff, as if quenched by time itself and lost its spark. Tavia wore a brown woolen overcoat and long, wide-legged trousers. The same clothes she loved to wear before. Her expression was as gentle as Seren remembered.

  Seeing Seren, Tavia smiled.

  “It’s been a while…captain,” Tavia said as she reached for a hug.