When Mal opened the door, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting.

  But being greeted by the blank, expressionless face of Lusia looking up at him was a little bit beyond his expectations.

  From inside the living room, Rolam perked up and looked over at her. “Miss Lusia? What are you doing here?”

  Lusia continued to stare at Mal as if waiting for him to do something. He looked down and realized that she was holding the briefcases full of Mal’s clothing.

  “Oh, thank you.” Mal stepped to the side.

  She walked into the room and did a quick scan of the area. She looked back at Mal. “Where is your room, master?”

  “You don’t have to bring them to my room, just drop them here.”

  “No.”

  Well, that pretty much blocked any argument Mal was going to bring out.

  He pointed over at the door leading into the hallway.

  “Through the hall and —” Nobody else was going to take the room with a hole in the floor, so he might as well. “—first one on the left. You’ll know it by the hole in the floor.”

  She nodded and took a single step. Immediately, the latches on both of the briefcases clicked open, and bundles of clothes and other small living amenities spilled out onto the floor.

  Mal reached up and scratched the top of his head. “We really need to get those latches replaced.”

  Lusia, meanwhile, was as still as a stone.

  If Mal really paid attention, he could’ve sworn that he saw her left eye twitching by the slightest of margins.

  “I agree,” she said.

  She leaned down and stuffed some of the clothes back into the briefcase.

  Mal stepped over and leaned down to help.She turned and glared at him, her eyes almost sparking with fire.

  “Am I not allowed to help, still?” Mal said.

  “It would be improper, master.”

  Mal sighed and took a step back. She really was insistent that he wouldn’t get any chance to pay her back, wasn’t she? Rewarding her for her loyalty was going to be exceptionally tricky if she kept this up.

  “You know, it really does waste time when we do these things,” Mal muttered.

  Lusia picked up a shirt. “How would one waste time?”

  “It’s a metaphor. It means that the task would be shorter if you let me help.”

  “I see.”

  She finished putting the items back into the briefcases, then stood up. She winced at the motion, but it was a small, subtle thing.

  Mal frowned.

  Has she overstrained herself? The day had been long, and she’d been carrying around those big briefcases for a period of time. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

  She walked over to the doorway, swung it open, then shut it behind her. From the inside of the door, Mal heard the now familiar sound of two latches clicking open.

  A bang echoed out, and the door rattled on its hinges, accompanied by a splintering noise from the other side.

  Rolam, Nima, and Philo all turned and slowly looked at Mal.

  “Who was that?” Nima asked.

  “That was Lusia, a maid of my family’s.”

  Rolam blinked and tilted his head. “You can bring your servants along? Is that even allowed?”

  “Philo remembers reading about this in one of my books related to Exodi. It isn’t typical, usually only done by extraordinarily wealthy individuals.”

  “Yes, Philo is right,” Nima said. “My family considered sending one of our servants with me, but we couldn’t afford it.”

  “So that means you’re rich, honored leader?” Rolam asked.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Mal did his best to remember the state of his family’s financial situation.

  “Technically —” Mal’s words were slow and hesitant as he tried to piece together what he recalled. “My father is a duke. However, due to mismanagement, we’re functionally no more powerful than barons. We’re still expected to keep up appearances, which is why Lusia came with me despite it not being preferable.”

  Nima's eyes widened. “That’s why she’s a woman.”

  Philo turned and looked at Nima. “What does her gender have to do with anything?”

  “It’s… not necessarily scandalous, but it’s questionable to have a female maid for a male student. It’s even more questionable given your similar ages.”

  “Is she going to be bunking with us?” Rolam said, a small frown on his face.

  “No, of course not,” Nima said. “The school has dormitories for any servants on the other side of campus.”

  Philo hummed. “Was there really nobody else your family could send?”

  Mal wasn’t 100% sure himself. The memories were blurry and distant to him. He barely even remembered what his father looked like, much less why Lusia had been assigned to him.

  He came up with an explanation on the fly.

  “She’s not just a maid,” Mal said. “She’s a bodyguard. An excellent one, at that. She actually stopped some bandits from killing me back when we were coming into town via carriage.”

  Philo let in a quiet gasp. “Philo sees. She’s here to make sure that you stay alive. Given how dangerous Exodi can be, that makes perfect sense. What if you offended some wizards and they attempted to attack you? Or what if you’re sent out to subdue magical beasts? She’d be a last line of backup to ensure your safety.”

  “Exactly,” Mal said, despite having no idea whether or not this was the truth. There was absolutely a chance that she’d been given to him at random because his father didn’t care.

  The door to the hallway opened up, and Lusia strode out, her hands clasped and resting against the front of her dress. She turned and looked at Mal.

  She stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes narrowed as if she was attempting to figure out a puzzle.

  “What is it?” Mal said.

  The expression disappeared. She bowed her head. “Nothing, master. All of the items have been prepared in your room.”

  “Right, thank you.”

  A small frown appeared on her face before disappearing. She straightened her back.

  “By your leave, master,” she said.

  “Uh, right. You’re dismissed, or whatever the term is.”

  She bowed her head again and exited out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

  Philo inspected the teacher’s schedule while Rolam stared out the window.

  “So you said we have magic theory, combat, and herbalism?” Mal said. “How much have you heard about the teachers?”

  At that question, Rolam’s eyes flickered back toward Philo, though they immediately moved back toward the window again.

  “The most obvious professor to talk about is Puck.” Philo pointed to the second day on the calendar. “He actually teaches first-year Spellcraft. The bare basics.”

  “He’s a very humble person, isn’t he?” Mal said.

  “It’s a very stark contrast to the typical elite wizard. Especially an S-rank like him.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  There was definitely a degree of truth to that, Mal noted. S-ranks… S-ranks were strange.

  The kingdom of Chama had a single S-rank, the headmaster of Exodi. Two, as of Princess Savaly’s core test. More than any other political entity in the West.

  Mal had the opportunity to meet the other S-ranks, and to a tee, Mal remembered almost all of them having some kind of personality quirk that made even him uncomfortable to be around.

  One had an obsession with dolls and carried around a large stuffed animal wherever he went. Another had to be forced to eat by her handlers, as she found all food disgusting and detestable. Another had such an obsessive training schedule so dangerous that he had to be stopped from pushing himself too hard. If he wasn’t controlled, he probably wouldn’t sleep. And then there was Princess Savaly, with her psychopathic methodology.

  Not that Mal had any room to speak, but the point still stood.

  Mal had theorized that it once again had to do with the relationship between the core and the body. S-ranks were exceptional, by definition. Another way of saying exceptional was different, or warped. Just as their cores were almost staggering in how alien they were compared to even an A-rank core, their minds were similarly twisted.

  Ironically, this is what made them easier targets to defeat than the Heralds. Once Mal had figured out how they ticked, all of their actions became predictable and easy to plan against. The Heralds, on the other hand, were unusual, but their personality quirks and psychology weren’t so extreme that it dominated the rest of their personhood. Yes, the heroine had been nearly mute, but that wasn’t traceable to any particular psychology that Mal could make out.

  And again, this is what made Puck so unusual. Out of every S-rank that Mal knew of, he was the only one who’d managed to keep a grip on his sanity and morality.

  But then again, Puck was a freak in other ways. Of all the S-cores, he was the strongest by a massive margin. It wasn’t even close. Four Archdemons? Even Mal would’ve called it quits against such odds.

  “Ape?” Philo said. “Ape, are you there?”

  Mal blinked. He’d gotten lost in thought again.

  “Sorry, I was thinking. What were you saying?”

  “I was just mentioning Vigil. You know the rumors, right?”

  “Yeah, thirty years missing,” Mal said.

  “Not just that. Lost in hell.” Philo’s voice dropped. “Though that seems rather impossible.”

  Mal didn’t know very much about Vigil. By the time Mal had taken power, Vigil had been dead for a while. But what Philo was saying definitely lined up with what Mal knew.

  “Anyway,” Philo said. “Vigil teaches combat. He’s very rough with the students. Maybe even a little cruel. Philo heard he once beat a student into the ground for questioning him. He was reprimanded by the headmaster, but still.”

  “And what about Igna?” Mal asked.

  “They say that she’s the nicest teacher,” Philo said. “Very lenient, very kind.”

  Mal didn’t consider her very kind when she’d tried to stick a knife in his throat, but then again, they’d been enemies at the time. Perhaps off the battlefield, she truly was a nice individual.

  “There are a few graduate students and assistant professors who help out from time to time,” Philo said. “But the only other major player we need to be concerned about is Cassandra Eclus.”

  Mal tried to think back to his school years. “She was the potions and herbalism professor, right?”

  “Was?”

  Mal grimaced. “Sorry, is.”

  “Well, yeah, you’re right. A prodigy. She contributed a number of potion recipes to potion journals and potion books all over the continent. Apparently—and this is just a rumor, so don’t quote Philo on this—she was raised by a witch. Obviously, she’s denied it every single time, but given her herbalism background, a lot of people don’t believe her.”

  There was a noticeable tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Mal raised an eyebrow. “What else?”

  “…she has something against men? Again, that’s just a rumor.”

  She didn’t seem too rude when Mal had met her after he’d knocked out Hypode.

  “Oh, and apparently the Cup of Tears was moved into the school about a week ago,” Philo said.

  Mal stiffened.

  “Did you say… the Cup of Tears?”

  “Yes. The king thought it wasn’t safe at the palace, so it was moved here under Headmaster Puck’s watchful eye.”

  Mal was silent for a few long seconds before he spoke.

  “Right. Neat.”

  The conversation continued on for a few minutes, but Mal had already mentally checked out.

  How could I have forgotten?

  In eight months’ time, at the end of the first year, the Cup would be stolen, beginning a long chain of events that would culminate in the destruction of Exodi Academy.

  Mal stepped into his dorm room and shut the door behind him. It was already evening, the sun’s light rapidly fading away past the horizon.

  Lusia had put some kind of tarp over the hole in the ground. She’d also apparently decided to use the briefcases as drawers. Which made sense, given that there was literally no other furniture in the room.

  To her credit, she tried putting a coat hanger on the back of the door. Unfortunately, it seemed she messed up the measurements at some point, and now there were three holes on Mal’s side of the door.

  He took off his wizard’s robes and put them onto the coat hanger, then stepped over to the bed and fell back into it. Instantly, the breath was knocked out of him from the hard impact. It was then that Mal realized that there were absolutely no springs fluff, or down added to the mattress. It was just a flat wood plank.

  Mal tried his best to get comfortable, despite the itchiness of the blanket and pillow underneath him. Automatically, his thoughts wandered back to the subject of conversation from earlier.

  The Cup of Tears.

  There was an old myth. Mal didn’t remember much about it and the details had been thoroughly lost to time. But from what he recalled—there’d once been a witch, a hero, and a demon. The demon sought to destroy the world. The hero tried to save it. And the witch… well, that was ambiguous. The legend sometimes said that she helped the hero. Other variants said that she was a servant of the demon.

  Whatever the case, they were all extraordinarily powerful. And artifacts that were linked to any of the three were of great interest to scholars.

  One of these artifacts was the Cup of Tears, the personal cup of the Winter Witch.

  Aligned mana wrapped around the cup like a cocoon. Herbal remedies drunk from it had double or triple the effect. Nobody quite understood why.

  Unfortunately, herbalism wasn’t really practical anymore, having been mostly displaced by potions. As such, the only practical magic users interested in the cup were either the handful of witches that remained active in the modern age, or aligned magic scholars.

  But there was one group that disagreed. One group that saw an opportunity.

  The Bird Eaters Cult.

  The symbols of the cult placed itself in his mind’s eye. A small metal trinket in the shape of a Blackcaw bird and a mask with the the bird’s long beak, a twin pairing that struck fear into the hearts of all who knew their true meaning.

  The Blackcaw was a symbol of death. Fitting for a cult which seeked the destruction of the world.

  Over the course of the next six years, the Bird Eaters would make a number of moves, ranging from the theft of the cup, then triggering the invasion from the East, before they summoned the largest demonic incursion ever seen in its fifth year to destroy the city.

  On the surface, the cult attacks had “failed.” The city never fell, until Mal actually struck the final blow. But the whole time, important people had been disappearing. Scholars. Wizards of the highest class. The whole time, the attacks had served as a suitable distraction. Mal suspected that the attacks had never been about actually destroying the city, but about causing chaos.

  Mal had spent an enormous amount of time attempting to track down their headquarters and their true goal, but they were always one step ahead of him. He knew that the materials they were collecting were being used for summoning. But summoning what? Mal didn’t know.

  Whatever it was, he was almost certain that it had something to do with the vision he’d had of the world burning. They were the only group that made sense. The only ones with the resources, the intention, and the willingness to cause as much chaos and damage as possible.

  But this time, Mal held the advantage. He knew what they were going to do, and he’d be able to stop them before they were able to accomplish it.

  And he could start his plans by stopping the theft of the cup.

  And if he just so happened to take it for himself in the middle of all the chaos, then that would just be too bad. At the very least, it wouldn’t be in the hands of a crazy cult.

  From what he understood, the cup was hidden deep underneath the school. There was a sequence of puzzles leading to a room with an altar. Of course, the true cup wasn’t there. The whole thing was, in fact, an elaborate deception. You had to go behind the altar and blow up the back wall, and then you would find the real cup. He learned all this by interrogating an assistant professor who’d been involved with that years before.

  Mal was halfway tempted to waltz into the storage room and take the cup right then and there.

  Unfortunately, he knew that that would be a terrible idea.

  As he was right now, he wouldn’t be able to do a better job protecting the cup than the school. Plus, he was almost certain that Puck had eyes on that location. Mal didn’t feel like drawing the ire of what might’ve been the strongest wizard of the past thousand years. That was ignoring the several other professors who would easily be able to destroy him, given how incredibly weak he was right now.

  He had plenty of time. Nearly eight months before final exams for the year, when the cult would make their move. The only other big event would be in four months, during midterms, when the cult would summon a single demon as some kind of intimidation tactic. That was the event Vigil perished in. Caught by surprise, the poor bastard.

  Would Mal intervene?

  Maybe.

  He couldn’t risk screwing up the timeline too badly.

  For now, Mal would focus on building up his resources. Find another path besides Spellcraft. Gain power. Gain allies. Then, when the time was right, make his move.

  But then there were more immediate concerns.

  He frowned.

  His circle. Circle trouble.

  Somewhere along the way, he’d messed up. He wasn’t sure what else he could’ve done, but things had clearly gone massively, massively wrong. Philo and Rolam weren’t supposed to be in a circle together. Mal remembered that much from his first timeline. But due to his intervention, everything had gotten screwed up.

  Not only would they be terrible circle-mates due to the constant infighting, but Mal was also screwing over their ability to work together in the future. Mal didn’t want the Heralds weak. He needed them strong, so he could enlist them as allies against the Bird Eaters. Whatever his personal feelings, he could put them to the side to fight for the greater good, unlike them in the first timeline.

  Though that would mean allying with the heroine…

  Phantom pains went up and down his chest. He remembered the feeling of that blade sliding into his chest effortlessly, slick with his blood.

  He pushed away the memories as best he could.

  He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do when he found the heroine. She was a student here, he knew that. But he had yet to notice her distinct scent. She was like a ghost, invisible and untraceable.

  Mal might’ve thought Princess Savaly was the heroine, if not for the fact that he’d seen them in the same room together, so that was pretty much out of the question.

  But if it wasn’t her, then who? It had to be someone who was at least A-rank. The kinds of maneuvers that she had pulled off just wouldn’t have been possible with a lower rank.

  But going back to his circle, he was absolutely sure what he was going to do.

  …Request a transfer.

  While it would’ve been more dramatic and funny to find a way to get himself kicked off of his team or something, Mal knew that such schemes were likely to backfire. Plus, he would’ve gotten a reputation as a troublemaker, the last thing he needed considering his recent “accomplishment” of getting second place on the exam. No, better to do things through the formal channels. He would make up some lie about irreconcilable differences and get transferred off of that team onto another.

  Mal found his eyes flickering shut. The day had been long, and he was exhausted.

  One more time, he ran through his plans for the school year.

  One: find an alternative method of gaining magical power.

  Two: get himself kicked off of his circle.

  Three: steal the Cup of Tears.

  All very simple. All very easy. Mal was sure he would have absolutely no problems executing any of these, and there would totally not be any consequences for any of his actions. Everything would go perfectly according to plan, and he’d get exactly what he wanted. Right?

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