As the excitement had begun to die down in the plaza, Azriel stepped off the platform to the stone slabbed surface. Then without making any indication of a valediction or acknowledgment of Azriel’s presence, the scribe, with an annoyed expression, pulled a lever, lifting off, and leaving as quickly as he came.

Azriel turned to watch as the irritated scribe impatiently tapped his feet while the distance between them quickly grew. Logos scribes had not made the best impression on Azriel. Something about their appearance and high-strung attitude rubbed Azriel the wrong way. It was like they viewed others around them as inferiors. Although he couldn’t fully articulate why he felt that way.

Most of the children had turned to look at Azriel—those who were paying attention—holding their tongues while watching him intently. Despite Azriel’s struggle to recognize and gauge the emotions of others, he could see their fear and wonder. They didn’t know whether to like or dislike him, so instead, they remained silent.

Klaus and the girl, Monika, were standing beside the fountain, conversing. Neither had noticed Azriel’s arrival, too focused on each other to see past themselves.

“I’m glad Klaus is making new friends,” Azriel thought as he approached the two kids.

Reading the room, a little too late, Klaus and Monika turned to see Azriel standing right behind them. They jumped back, a little startled. A fearful look appeared on the girl as she began to inch backward to get away.

Klaus grabbed her wrist, preventing Monika from leaving, “Wait, don’t worry, Azriel is a good guy.”

Azriel tried to force a smile that came off a little creepy while waving his broken hand at her saying, “Nice to meet you, Monika.”

Monika was visibly creeped out by Azriel’s casual dropping of her name. Even though she knew such a thing to be irrational as most of the others knew her name by this point, she hadn’t yet introduced herself as Monika to him.

“A-Azriel, what happened?” Klaus stuttered. “Did you break your hand?”

Azriel nodded, then said, “I slammed my fist against a coffee table without thinking,” while moving and twisting his pinky finger around with his other hand causing it to crackle and crunch.

Monika turned back to Klaus with a look of revulsion and trepidation before wrestling her arm free and scampering away. Klaus cringed inwardly at the uncomfortable situation before refocusing on what held priority to him at that moment.

“Are you okay? Do you need medical attention?” he asked, worth a look of genuine compassion.

Azriel nodded with a monotone expression, tranquility responding, “I am in great pain. Don’t worry about it, though. I’ll be fine.”

Azriel wasn’t lying about the pain, but it didn’t bother him.

Klaus raised an eyebrow, skeptically countering, “Are you sure about that? Your finger is turning purple.”

“I just need living-w—” Azriel stumbled over his words, barely stopping before making a remark on his familiarity with living-water. “I-I mean, I just need to live… with it for a while.”

Klaus squinted, blue eyes filled with scrutiny but a genuine concern to match. He hadn’t any idea how Azriel managed to stay so composed. His behavior, what with this, and how he handled the fight against the bald expert raised concerns in Klaus’s mind about who Azriel was on more than a surface level. From Azriel’s depth of knowledge and having been made aware of Azriel’s achievement over the wendigo at the age of six, Klaus knew Azriel would be an unparalleled fighter for his age, but the depths to which that skill went seemed a bit too unrealistic. He felt that Azriel had somehow misled him with his humble nature, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Klaus scratched his head, subtly dismissing Azriel, saying, “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”

Averting I contact with Azriel, he continued, asking, “Az, did something bad happen when you were in the tower with headmaster Jean? You’re not in trouble, are you—?”

“No, he was impressed by my fight and guaranteed I would be accepted.”

Intently listening to Azriel’s conversation, the children in the courtyard went dead silent. Klaus nervously held his breath, just becoming cognizant of that detail. Azriel didn’t like it either; it reminded him of the Tutorial Zone.

Without realizing it, Azriel had already set himself down the course of fame and infamy. By his own admission, everyone now knew he had been praised by the Icon of Virtue, not punished. Such a thing sparked fear, envy, veneration, and eventually sycophantism. People were already composing plans to get on his good side, either to use him to further their ends or to get him to look at them fondly as a way of promoting their own sense of self-worth.

Azriel was blissfully ignorant of the scheming nature of people, however, he was oblivious to how his words and actions would affect his experiences in the near future.

***

It was the morning of the next day. Light peeked through the shuttered windows of the inn room Azriel and Klaus had slept in overnight. The room was warm and cozy, with wood walls lined with furs. A small brick fireplace crackled beside the chair in which sat the ten-year-old Azriel.

Azriel sat alone in the empty room, Klaus having already left to regroup with others in the courtyard. He told Klaus not to wait for him, for he had something important to do that not even Klaus could be let in on.

In his hand, Azriel held the paper given to him by jeans still creased with fold marks. Azriel looked it over, rereading it for what may’ve been the fortieth or fiftieth time. It read, “Do not tell anyone, under any circumstance, not even other reincarnations, that you are from the tribe of Ashur. If another reincarnation asks, say that you are from the tribe of Naphtalia. If you are asked what your unique skill is, say that it is Godly Experience. By no means should you ever let the word ‘ultimate’ slip from your mouth. Don’t even say it when you think you’re alone.

I cannot tell you much more at this time. It is better if you don’t know. It is for your own safety as well as everyone else’s. Be careful who you trust and open up to. Even if someone genuinely has your best interest in mind, their actions with the knowledge you entrusted them with can inadvertently put you at risk.

Burn this letter as soon as you have the chance. If there is no good place for you to do so, burn it with the matchbook I put in the ring box.”

Azriel clenched his teeth while folding the paper back up and tossing it in the fireplace. From there, he grabbed the now-empty ring box and threw it into the flame, having already stored the matchbook in his pocket-dimension.

The folded paper singed as brown lined with glowing red embers tore holes through it. Soon the letter-paper was not but ash intermixed with ash there before, a sentiment forever erased, untraceable.

Azriel grabbed a pale of water, splashing its contents onto the fire, quenching the flame. Then replace it beside the fireplace. His tracks were covered, and he could leave feeling safer.

Standing up, he walked out the door with a blank expression that told no tales and a suitcase in his broken hand stuffed with Klaus’s clothes.

Luckily for Klaus, Azriel had noticed that he had forgotten to take the case at the foot of Klaus’s bed. Klaus would’ve accidentally left behind an assortment of clothes worth more than what the entirety of Hildenfreide generated over an entire year.

***

By the time Azriel had arrived at his destination, the courtyard was packed tight with a long line of stagecoaches. They weren’t nearly as fancy as the ones the noble families rode in. They were pretty drab by comparison, but they were big, big enough to fit up to ten or more people.

“Generation 37 of the Azurellione Knight’s Corp, when you hear your name step up to the cabin and embark,” ordered an important-looking soldier with foreign features. “Marcus of Talberg, Rictor von Eisenov, Stefan Meyer, Jonas—”

As the man listed off the accepted applicants one by one, the children proceeded to board the stagecoaches in an orderly fashion. Seeing this, Azriel was quite surprised. He thought how disorderly and unruly the children of Hildenfreide would’ve been in the same situation.

Azriel shifted through the crowd, searching for Klaus. He found him sitting beside the fountain, talking to Monika. His cheeks were flushed red, but Azriel didn’t recognize what that meant.

Tapping him on the shoulder, Azriel held out the briefcase saying, “Here you go.”

Klaus thanked Azriel, taking the suitcase out of Azriel’s hand before turning his attention back to Monika, continuing their conversation. Azriel waited around half-listening to the twos’ dialogue while people were called up to the board.

Azriel felt excluded from their conversation. It appeared, to him, that Klaus didn’t want him to take part in it, and he wasn’t sure why. It was the first time someone had made Azriel feel that way, feel like there was a knot in his chest, feeling like he was inadequate or obsolete.

“Monika of Leonna,” the senior soldier called out.

The girl grabbed her bags with Klaus’s help and boarded the stagecoach.

“Klaus Leone.”

Klaus grabbed his suitcase, boarding the same stagecoach as Monika had.

“Jürgen von Altenburger.”

Azriel felt the knot in his chest grow tighter when he didn’t hear his name following Klaus’s. The boarding order up until this point had been consistent with the ordering used since the second trial. From what he could remember about the order, He had been the only discrepancy in it so far.

Azriel—somewhat disheartened—watched as one person after the other filled up Klaus’s cabin, the next, and so on until Azriel was the last person. For a second, he thought they might’ve forgotten him.

“Azriel of Hildenfreide.”

Azriel felt his tension releasing slightly as he boarded the last stagecoach to a group of unfamiliar faces.

“Skipping the third trial must’ve thrown off the order and put me at the very bottom of their list,” Azriel theorized.

As Azriel boarded the stagecoach, he sat across from three other individuals, two boys and one girl. Everyone in the cabin awkwardly glanced at each other, sitting in complete silence, their hearts pounding either from being around new people or being in the same cart as Azriel.

Suddenly the lock clicked as the wagoner locked it from the outside. It was a two-way lock meaning that without a key, they were all trapped inside the cabin with Azriel. As such, their heart thumping sped up even more.

Azriel sighed, exhaling his frustration. The knot in his chest ebbed away till it subsided.

“Why was I even upset?” Azriel pondered. He didn’t understand the emotion that he had experienced, even less so now that the moment had passed.

A few minutes later, a distant voice shouted something incoherent, and the carriages slowly started lurching forward, gaining speed up to a moderate pace as they left the plaza and entered the city streets.

Azriel leaned back in his chair, letting out a de-stressing sigh, then tilted his head back and closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he could sense the nervous co-passengers becoming more comfortable, their heart-rate slowing till he could no longer feel them while their stiffened muscles relaxed.

It took nearly an hour to get out of the city. All the way, Azriel could sense the hectic chaos of the commute between the city streets. It put him on edge, but he was starting to get used to it.

“He hasn’t moved for an entire hour,” whispered one of the boys in the carriage, commenting on Azriel’s unrealized ability to remain completely still for indefinite periods of time. “Do you think he’s sleeping—?”

“Shush, he’ll hear you,” the girl berated the boy in a soft whisper.

Azriel sat forward, declaring, “Too late; I already heard both of you,” causing them to jump in their seats.

Their eyes went wide. Azriel could sense their hearts beating again. While Azriel was annoyed by this, he knew he had ultimately caused it by scaring them, whether unintentional or not.

Azriel lightly yawned, then suggested, “Let’s break the ice.”