“Delivery for you sir.”

Thio looked up from his paperwork in surprise. The 2nd Class Mage handed him a nicely wrapped package, saluted, and excused himself.

Evans, who liked to be nosy, immediately came over to see what he’d gotten.

“Oh, package from home. Unusual. Who’s it from?”

After reading the note, Thio handed it to Evans.

“From that girl then?” Evans narrowed his eyes, he still hadn’t quite forgiven her. Thio had patiently waited every morning for a week to see her and she’d never shown up.

Thio opened the package, and gaped in astonishment.

“Oh my God!” Evan eyes widened.

There was a neatly folded shirt inside, with some of the most elaborate stitching either of them had ever seen. Thio unfolded the shirt and lifted it up to get a full view of the multi-shaded green embroidery. Detailed mountains and stars were stitched on the collar, sleeves, and hem. There were patterns grafted in a style they’d never seen before, giving it a slightly exotic appearance. It looked like something a wealthy Lord would wear.

A small crowd of (bored) coworkers gathered around Thio and Evans to admire the shirt:

“That’s amazing! How long do you think it took to make? Three weeks at least?”

“Who made that? Do you have a lover hiding up your sleeve? Don’t hold out on us! Tell me everything!”

“Pff, a girl? You can’t seriously think Mr. Workaholic has a girl? It’s probably some aunty or something. I mean, look at the quality…”

Lastly, Evan’s gave his friend a speculatively stare and asked:

“…how are you and this Caroline woman related, exactly?”

Thio blinked then, frowned, and hastily refolded the shirt, stuffing it haphazardly back into the paper. Standing up stiffly, face beet red, he announced: “I——I’m going home early!”

And before anyone could tell him no, he ran. Literally, he ran out the door, out of the building, and down the street.

His coworkers stood their in stunned silence, before bursting out in laughter.

“Oh my God, he DOES have a lover! I’m telling everyone! EVERYONE!”

“Oh, our little Acanthio is finally entering puberty! I’m so proud! Someone get me a hanky!”

“Will wonders never cease to amaze… here I thought that guy’s first love was work…”

But Evans was quiet, a very thoughtful look on his face.

——

Thio was not designed for long distance running. He staggered to a halt a scant few feet from Headquarters, wheezing so heavily that pedestrians were staring at him in alarm. When his breathing was steady enough, he cast an Endurance Recovery spell on himself and instantly felt better.

Standing up straight and adjusting his coat and messed up hair, he began calmly walking down the sidewalk. He would occasionally look down at the package in his hands, his lips twitching.

Once he was home, he walked up to his room, which had a large body mirror. He unbuttoned his coat and shirt and took them off. He then, with the utmost care, put the new shirt on, and stood in front of the mirror.

It fit perfectly. Feeling the cloth between his fingers, he was impressed by it’s soft sturdiness. Moving his arms and waist, this way and that, he admired how the shirt looked on him. The green thread matched him very well, and the intricate design work somehow made him feel like royalty.

This was the first time since he was a child that anyone had made a shirt for him, much less one of such high quality. If he wore this out on the town, he was sure he’d start seeing copies of the unique stitching by the next week. This was what people called “trend setting”. This was the sort of thing you could wear with your head held high.

He touched the collar of the shirt, feeling the embroidered thread under his fingers.

Caroline had stitched every thread on this shirt. He could imagine her hunched over, fingers covered in pricks, cursing up a storm. She’d mentioned in a letter, he couldn’t remember which, that she never embroidered without bleeding and that Mariel was chronically amazed at how she could remain so clumsy despite so much practice.

Thio had assumed this meant Caroline was bad at embroidery. Clearly he was wrong. Mariel was either an excellent teacher or Caroline had a real talent for embroidery. Either way, she’d produced something amazing.

Is this why she’d been so busy after returning home? Something this complicated had to take weeks to finish. Had she been stiff in her letters because she was trying to hide it, as a surprise?

A beautiful shirt with his family crest on it, a gift just for him. She had thought of him when making this shirt. Him and him alone.

So she wasn’t angry.

Thank God.

He’d been really worried.

Taking out some paper and a pen, he immediately began crafting a letter. About half way through, there was a knock on the door. Annoyed, he went down stairs, only to be greeted by a sweaty, gasping 1st Class Mage with a message:

Drake spotted in Eternal Green Forest. Report to duty immediately.

——

“That is NOT a drake!” Spat Evans, his arm hanging bloodied at his side. Their assigned Healer, Sentra, ran over and started casting magic on his broken arm. She was covered in other’s blood already and looked exhausted. She was running out of mana, and fast.

Drakes were giant dumb lizards with a taste for cow and sheep. They were dangerous because they sometimes confused people with cattle, walked through houses like they weren't there, and their tough skin couldn't be pierced with conventional weapons. Adventurer's had trouble with them and Guards had absolutely no chance, so the Army was called instead. But this was not a drake.

This was a dragon, specifically a fire breathing dragon. One with the rare ability Chameleon that allowed it to disguise itself. No wonder it’d gotten so far into the Empire before anyone alerted the Army. Fire breathing Dragons were three times as powerful as drakes and far more intelligent, making them a high class monster universally feared. If they'd known what it was at the start, they'd have immediately retreated and gotten reinforcements.

But they hadn't known. Not until they're irritated the dragon enough to drop it's diguise and start stomping on them. By then it was too late. They couldn't even escape without risking half their party dying instantly.

Usually the military sent out a squad of Dragon Knights, along with several Dragon Mages, and at least one Divinity ranked Healer to deal with a fire breathing dragon. Right now there were two Knights, two Mages (Evans and Thio) and one Holy Mage. All mid-ranked fighters and absolutely no match for a dragon.

They were in a pinch. If something didn’t change soon, they were all going to die. And not just them, but also the town they were protecting. Nothing was more deadly than a dragon in a foul temper, and getting smacked around by a bunch of annoying humans was definitely going to put it in a bad mood.

The two knights were currently split, one trying to distract the dragon, while the other attempted to stab it in vulnerable areas (which included any joint and the eyes). It wasn’t working well for them and they were tired. Evans, Thio, and Sentra had been casting Defense and Endurance Booster spells on the Knights continually just to keep them alive.

Thio was standing just out of reach of the dragon’s attack range, his face calm and neutral. An outsider might mistake this as indifference, but Evans knew better. The more stressful the situation, the more calm and calculative Thio became. Right now, Thio’s mind was likely working so hard that it didn’t have time to worry about facial expressions.

As if to prove Evans right, Thio tilted his Mage’s staff forward and began casting:

[Αργός στόχος][πυκνή ομίχλη][Μείωση θερμοκρασίας][Πάγωμα εδάφους][Παγίδα πάγου]

Several things happened all at once. The dragon’s movements began to slow down ever so slightly, a thick mist surrounded the area, it got extremely cold and the ground turned into slick ice. The dragon lost it’s balance on the ice, falling, and gave a roar of surprise. In that moment, as it roared, it became encapsulated in ice.

Thio ran over to the Knight with the long sword and started casting all sorts of buffs on him: strengthen, pierce, harden, etc. Even as he did so, the ice surrounding the dragon began to crack loudly, the spell weakening.

Without giving the Knight any time to prepare himself, Thio cast a final spell: Weight Reduction, and then threw him at the Dragon’s face.

“STAB HIM IN THE EYE.” Thio yelled as the Knight went sailing.

The Knight screamed as he was hurtled toward the dragon’s frozen eyes. Seeing that the ice spell was going to break soon, and realizing he had only one chance to make this work, the Knight did as instructed.

Sword in both hands, he swing down with every last ounce of his strength. At that exact moment, the ice shattered and the dragon was free. But the “Slow” spell was still in affect, and it couldn’t move quite fast enough to dodge. The Knight’s sword jammed into the dragon’s vulnerable eye, as if it were butter. Farther and farther in it went, until the Knight was up to his shoulders in eyeball.

The Dragon gave a strangled cry of shock, slumping in a cold heap on the forest floor, a final twitch announcing it’s death.

Everyone stood there in stunned silence, before raising a ragged cheer.

Sentra slid to the ground in relief. “I was almost a Healer Kabob!”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe that worked!” The Knight dangling from the dragon’s eye yelled in relieved triumph.

The other Knight ran over and started pulling his partner out of seeping eyeball.

Evans walked over to Thio, thoroughly impressed. “How did you manage that?”

Thio shrugged. “The only true physical weakness of a fire dragon is it’s eyes and a poor tolerance for the cold. So I stacked my ice spells in such a way that they increased the power of every preceding spell I cast. By the time I got to Ice Trap, I’d increased the probability of success by over half. It wouldn’t last long even if it did work, considering the power difference between the dragon and I, but it’d be enough time for the Knight to pierce it’s eye.”

“What if Ice Trap had failed?”

“We’d run, quickly.”

Evans whistled and slapped Thio on the back. “Seriously… Only you could have pulled that off… You know you’re definitely getting a promotion after this, right?”

"I better not end up skipping ranks again.." Thio muttered, eyes narrowed.

He was promoted and skipped a rank, as Evans predicted.

He also got a nickname. The Knights teasingly called him the “Ice Prince” when they were reporting to the Mayor of the town they’d saved. The Mayor had liked it so much, he spread it around to everyone he knew. From there, it spread through out the entire country.

Thio was thoroughly embarrassed by the corny nickname. If anyone called him that at Headquarters, he’d purposefully ignore them or threaten them (if they were lower ranked than him). This only increased the usage of his nickname among the Air Division, as everyone thought it was great fun to tease him about it (even behind his back).