Cordelia leaned back, her fingers tracing the edge of Jax’s tattered blue cloak with a slow, deliberate rhythm that made my face heat up just watching them. "Look Jax, I need you to do me a teeny, tiny favor. I want you to train my sweet little Akira here, and if you can find the patience in that big, muscular chest of yours, take care of Lyra over there as well."

  Both me and Lyra felt our hearts plummet into our stomachs at the mention of our names. A cold shiver raced down my spine as Jax’s steel-gray eyes drifted toward us. He didn't have an aura, but he felt like a landslide waiting to happen, a silent, looming threat that was somehow scarier than the flashy magic I was used to seeing. He stood there like a monolith of scarred leather and tempered iron, his presence displacing the very air around him.

  Jax let out a breath that sounded like a weary growl. "What exactly do you want me to do with them? You want me to teach them how to gut a man with a broken blade, or how to survive a week in the wild with nothing but a handful of salt?"

  "No, no, no, silly!" Cordelia interrupted, her voice a melodic, playful lilt as she tapped Jax on the nose with a daring familiarity. "I want you to train their mana control. And find some clever little strategies to improve their magic so they don't accidentally blow up the kitchen next time they get a fright."

  Jax stared at her, his rugged face twisting into a look of pure disbelief. "I don't even use mana, Cordelia. I’m a man of steel and grit. You want a me to teach them how to juggle sparkles?"

  Cordelia snapped her fingers, her eyes gleaming with a wicked, knowing light. "You might not use it, Jax, but don't play coy with me. You have an extreme knowledge of the stuff. I know for a fact you’ve been sneaking into the great library for about four hours a day for hundreds of years, devouring every scroll on magical theory and essence-structure you can find. You’re practically a walking encyclopedia of this world’s laws."

  Jax sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of centuries. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, finally conceding to her logic. "You got me there. Fine." He turned his intense gaze toward me, and I felt like a bug under a microscope. "What can you do, girl? Give me the short version."

  I felt my throat tighten, my hands trembling as I clutched the fabric of my maid uniform. "I... well, I can sense mana, mostly. I can feel my own, and sometimes I feel others, but I usually pass out if they're too strong. And... sometimes I do a random bit of magic by accident when I’m cleaning, but I can't really control it."

  Cordelia let out a silver-bell laugh, patting my shoulder. "Oh, Jax, don't mind her. Akira here is what you’d call a total 'noob' in the world of the supernatural."

  My jaw nearly hit the stone floor. A noob? My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. How on earth does a Demon Lord from a fantasy world know that word? I felt a strange mix of embarrassment and absolute confusion. Was she reading my memories, or is it just a term that's also used here.

  Jax looked over at Lyra, and Cordelia continued, her tone turning a bit more analytical but still dangerously playful. "And this blue-haired firecracker is actually pretty good, but she’s all power and no polish. She’s a wind magic natural, though as you saw with the gargoyle earlier, her aim is a complete catastrophe. She needs work."

  Jax nodded slowly. "When do we start?"

  Cordelia’s smile turned positively radiant. "Hmm, how about right now! Without a moment's hesitation, I’m leaving these two in your very capable, very handsome hands. Cya!"

  "Hey, wait! Where are you going?" Jax called out, reaching for her, but his hand only caught the scent of roses.

  "Oh, you know me, Jax!" Cordelia’s voice echoed through the arena as she began to shimmer and fade. "I don't really like the boring parts of fighting, and I got immediately bored trying to explain the basics. So, while you do the heavy lifting and train them, I’m going to go find Malphas and see if I can make him uncomfortable enough to break that cold stone face of his. Toodles!"

  I could see Lyra’s face fall instantly. She looked completely crushed, her shoulders slumping as she realized her "training with a Demon Lord" had just been downgraded to training with a grumpy, mana-less soldier.

  Cordelia vanished in a swirl of petals, leaving us in a heavy silence.

  "Should've seen that coming," Jax muttered. He looked toward the shadow where the maid had stood. "Hey, Seraphina—" He stopped, realizing the maid had also disappeared without a word. "So it's just me and these two. Great. Just perfect."

  He turned back to us, his presence suddenly sharpening. "Listen up. I’ll be teaching you one by one. While one of you practices, I’ll coach the other. Lyra, go stand over there and practice your breathing or whatever nonsense Cordelia told you. Don't stop until you feel like your lungs are made of leather."

  He walked up to me, his heavy boots echoing on the obsidian. "I’ll start with the weakest. Stand still."

  He stood so close I could see the fine lines of the scar on his face. He looked at me with such intensity I felt like he was peering through my skin and looking at my very soul. "Try to raise your mana," he commanded. "Act as if you’re about to manifest a magic circle for a spell."

  I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth and trying to force the energy to the surface. I pushed and shoved at the warmth inside me, trying to mold it into a circle, but nothing happened. Not even a spark. I felt frustrated, my face turning red from the effort.

  "Your problem is that you’re trying too hard," Jax said, his voice surprisingly calm. "Magic isn't a muscle you flex until it snaps. It’s a reflection of the mind. Most mages use different moods and different emotions to fuel their circles. Some use rage, some use fear. I need you to cycle through different emotions and try to find the one that resonates with your core. Find the feeling that makes the mana want to come out."

  Leaving me to struggle with my own brain, he marched over to Lyra. "And you. Wind magic. Let me see what you’ve got. Do something impressive."

  Lyra’s eyes lit up. I could see the competitive spark in her; she wanted to show this man that she wasn't just some helpless maid. She smirked, planting her feet firmly. With a sharp, graceful movement, she slashed her arms through the air. "Wind Blades!"

  Half a dozen translucent, razor-sharp crescents of air tore through the arena. They hit the obsidian training dummies with enough force to leave deep gouges, though more than half of them went wild, whistling over the dummies and slamming into the distant walls. She didn't stop there. She threw her hands upward, her face set in a look of fierce concentration. "Gale Force: Hurricane!"

  A localized cyclone erupted in the center of the arena, the wind howling so loudly it drowned out everything else. Dust and gravel began to swirl in a violent vortex.

  Jax didn't even look impressed. He simply reached down, unsealed one of the straight-edged swords at his side, and swung it in a single, lightning-fast upward arc. He didn't use a spell. He didn't use a shout. He just cut.

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  The sheer physical force and the "void" of his strike hit the hurricane like a hammer. The wind was literally sliced in half, the pressure equalizing instantly. The cyclone vanished as if it had never existed, leaving only a few stray rose petals fluttering to the ground.

  Lyra stood frozen, her mouth hanging open in total shock. Her most powerful attack had been neutralized by a piece of metal and a bit of arm strength.

  "Very strong," Jax said, sheathing his blade with a metallic click. "But with the amount of mana I’m sensing from you... you could be ten times more powerful. Your structure is sloppy. You're wasting energy. You need to improve the durability of your attacks so a simple physical shock doesn't shatter them. Watch the dummy."

  Jax stepped forward and pointed at a target. "You are trying to create a blade out of air, but air is fluid. You’re losing 40 percent of your force to friction because you aren't spinning the edge. Instead of a flat blade, imagine a serrated saw. Instead of pushing the wind, pull the vacuum behind it."

  Lyra tried it, her brow furrowed in concentration. When she launched her next strike, it didn't just hit the dummy; it hissed through the air with a high-pitched scream and sheared the top of the obsidian pillar clean off. Her eyes widened. The strategy was so simple, yet it amplified her power instantly.

  I turned my focus back inward. I tried to use anger, thinking of the chimeras, but the mana just flickered and died. I tried fear, thinking of the Despiser, but that only made me want to pass out. Then, I tried something else. I thought about being calm. I thought about the quiet moments in the castle, the smell of fresh tea, and the feeling of gratitude. I compared my life back on Earth, the mundane, gray routine, to the fact that I was alive right now. I realized that if it wasn't for Master Malphas saving me, I would have been troll food months ago.

  A wave of genuine warmth and peace washed over me. I felt grateful to be here, in this strange, beautiful, terrifying world.

  Suddenly, a soft hum filled the air. I opened my eyes and gasped. A perfect, shimmering magic circle had manifested in front of my palm. It wasn't large, and it didn't have any element yet, but it was stable. It was real.

  "I did it!" I whispered, my heart soaring with a joy I couldn't describe.

  "Good," Jax’s voice came from behind me, and I realized he had been watching the whole time. "Gratefulness. A rare anchor for magic, but a strong one. Keep that feeling. That’s your foundation."

  He then looked at Lyra, who was still struggling to aim her wind blades. "Lyra, stop trying to throw the wind like a rock. Use your body. Wave your hands in the exact direction you want the wind to flow. Treat the air like an extension of your own arms. If you want to hit a moving target, don't aim where they are. Aim where the pressure is lowest. Physics applies to magic just as much as it applies to a falling stone."

  Lyra tried it, waving her hands in a sweeping motion. The wind blades followed the path of her fingers, hitting the dummies with much better accuracy, even if she was still wobbling from the sheer output. Both of us were utterly floored by his insight. He didn't have a lick of magic in his veins, yet he understood the mechanics of the world better than any scholar we had ever met. He was a strategist of the highest order, breaking down complex supernatural phenomena into raw, logical components.

  The training continued under the scorching sun and the purple clouds, a grueling, exhausting dance of mana and iron. Jax was a relentless master, pushing us until our muscles screamed and our minds were hazy with magical exhaustion. But for the first time, I felt like I was finally starting to understand the language of this world.

  ─── ??☆?? ───

  Two hours later, the sun had dipped lower, casting long, jagged shadows across the castle corridors. I was dragging my feet toward my quarters, every bone in my body aching with a dull, throbbing heat. My mind was a whirlwind of thoughts about Jax. How could someone from my world, a world of skyscrapers and smartphones, become this terrifying, god-like warrior? It was unbelievable. His mental fortitude and tactical genius were on a level that made the "heroes" of the stories I'd read look like children playing with sticks.

  As I turned a corner into a particularly dim hallway, I noticed a figure moving ahead of me. It was Jax. He was walking with his usual heavy, rhythmic stride, but he seemed... hesitant. He would stop at a junction, look left, then right, then rub the back of his neck with a frustrated sigh.

  Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, his head snapped to the left. His steel-gray eyes locked onto mine from across the hall. I let out a sharp gasp and jumped back, my heart hammering against my ribs. His presence was so intense that even just being spotted by him felt like being targeted by a ballista. It was overwhelming, like a physical weight pressing against my chest.

  He began walking toward me, his boots thudding on the stone. "Excuse me. Akira, was it?"

  "Yeah... uh... and your name was Jax," I said, my voice clearly shaking. I tried to pull myself together, smoothing out my apron, but my hands wouldn't stop trembling.

  He stopped a few feet away, looming over me. "So, you're from the same world I was from. Interesting. You know, since I'm training you, you should save some time in the future and tell me how the world is... when you lived in it."

  The realization hit me like a physical blow. Cordelia had mentioned he was summoned here in a homunculus body hundreds of years ago. He had been away from "home" for centuries. He wasn't just a grumpy soldier; he was a man who had lost his entire world and watched it become ancient history from afar. He wanted to know how much humanity evoled since hes time there.

  "Uh, yeah, definitely," I stammered, feeling a strange surge of sympathy for the giant man. "And, um, thanks for the lessons today. You really helped us."

  Jax gave a stiff, almost imperceptible nod. "Yeah, don't mention it." He shifted his weight, looking around the hallway with a scowl. "Well... can you show me to my room? I think the butler guy said something like room ACF4. I managed to get myself lost. I was following him, but I stopped for a moment to spectate a particularly well-forged sword on a wall, and by the time I turned back, he was gone."

  I blinked. The man who could slice a powerful hurricane in half, had been defeated by a hallway because he got distracted by a shiny sword. "Yeah, sure," I said, a small, nervous smile tugging at my lips. "Follow me. It's just two floors up."

  ─── ??☆?? ───

  By the time I finally made it back to my own room, I was ready to collapse. I opened the door to find exactly what I expected: Lyra was sprawled out facedown on her bed, still wearing her boots, snoring softly. The poor girl had spent two hours essentially trying to reshape the atmosphere with her bare hands; no wonder she was out cold.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, reflecting on the sheer insanity of my life. Two Demon Lords, Malphas and Cordelia, were currently under the same roof. Then there were the god-like entities like Valerius and Jax. And Cordelia had apparently brought an entire entourage of high-level warriors with her. I let out a tired chuckle. This had to be the safest place in existence. Who would be crazy enough to attack a castle guarded by the literal embodiments of destruction and ancient strategy?

  Just as I was about to lay my head down, there was a sudden, sharp knock at the door.

  My heart skipped a beat. I stood up and pulled the door open, only to find Master Malphas standing there. He looked as imposing as ever, his dark regal attire perfectly pressed, though there was a flicker of something in his eyes that I couldn't quite read.

  "Akira," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Step into the hallway and close the door. I would not wish to disturb the other one’s slumber."

  I did as I was told, stepping out into the cold hall and pulling the door shut. I felt incredibly self-conscious in my sweat-stained uniform. "Master Malphas? Is everything alright?"

  "I wished to check on your progress," he said, folding his arms. "How was your day? Has Cordelia tried any of her... naughty tricks on you? She has a tendency to treat newcomers like playthings."

  "Oh, no, she was... well, she was Cordelia," I said, hesitating. "I actually learned a lot. She was going to train us, but then she let one of her guards, Jax, take over. He's a great sensei. I actually managed to manifest a stable magic circle."

  Malphas tilted his head, a shadow of a smile touching his lips. "Is that so? And do you know for certain which magic type you are a natural with yet?"

  "Not yet," I admitted. "But Jax thinks my foundation is based on gratefulness. It felt... right."

  Malphas nodded slowly, looking me over with an intensity that rivaled Jax's, though his felt more like a protective heat than a cold blade. "Good. If you are to serve in this castle, you must be able to defend yourself. I am pleased you found the training useful."

  He stood there for a moment longer than necessary, the silence becoming increasingly awkward as I shifted from foot to foot. "Well," he finally said, clearing his throat. "I shall leave you to your rest. Good night, Akira."

  "Good night, Master Malphas," I replied.

  Before I could even blink, he vanished in a puff of dark smoke, leaving behind only the faint scent of ozone and expensive incense. I stared at the empty space for a few seconds, wondering why he felt the need to check on me personally at this hour.

  I went back inside, kicked off my shoes, and fell onto the bed. This world was exhausting, terrifying, and completely nonsensical, but as I drifted off to sleep, I realized I wouldn't trade it for my old life for anything.