- Celeste -

The trip had been nothing but abdominal discomfort for Celeste. From their long hike in Erden's Tower to being chased by that shadow wolf, to being chased again by the rock drake. She couldn't act at all when the shadow wolf attacked them in the forest. Urie and Elicia took down the shadow wolf by themselves.

“I was just too scared and stood still.”

Celeste opened her eyes and glanced towards the bob-cut little girl holding her hands to a pedestal. In Celeste's eyes, Elicia had always been amazing.

“Unlike me, she was never afraid to voice out her opinions. When we first met, she always got mad at me for not speaking properly, but—” Elicia never stopped trying to befriend her.

At the rock formation where they took cover, Celeste was worried when she saw that Urie was injured. She was concerned but she didn't know what to do. It was also Elicia that knew to wrap his wound with bandages to stop the bleeding.

“As I thought, Elicia is amazing.”

Her stomach had been in a constant state of agitation as she thought of how inept she was at everything.

“Urie, even though he was injured... I worried him again.”

She was already a burden on the hike, eventually having him take her bags. Urie saw that she wasn't eating her bread roll and asked her if she was okay, He was always so considerate towards her.

Celeste missed her home and her family. If she could only go back, she would, but she couldn't. She felt wary of the sudden change in environment when she first arrived here, so she was grateful to Gideon for finding her, and appreciated Sacha taking her in. Rivelle's persistence in trying to interact with her had distracted her enough to not feel too depressed over her circumstances.

From time to time, however, she would remember her mother's homemade cooking, how she would especially make her bread on her birthdays.

At Urie's house, Celeste would go over to the kitchen whenever she would feel sad and sneak out a few bread rolls when nobody was looking. Every time she went over to the kitchen, there would be a fresh batch, ready for her to take. She would bring them over to the garden and eat them by herself.

Urie found out and eventually started joining her, always bringing with him a pot of hot tea. Although they didn't speak with each other much, with one bread roll at a time, the murky feeling which had built up within Celeste was slowly relieved.

“Comfortable...”

The cool air coming from the pedestal soothed her uneasy feelings over the trip and had reminded her of the year she spent in this bright and dazzling version of the world.

[Celeste!]

“Who?”

[Celeste! You're not supposed to be there!]

The first time she appeared, the tone of her voice had always been gentle. That was how Celeste remembered the voice that had visited her a couple of times the past year.

[My child! We won't make it in time! Stop him from holding onto the pedestal!]

Celeste could hear the voice speaking to her in complete sentences. Who did she mean? There were only three of them here. Could she mean the headmaster?

[Stop the child of the Fire Spirit from holding onto the pedestal!]

Celeste opened her eyes. From across the room in front of her, a pedestal was glowing with intense red light. Holding onto a small flame on top of the pedestal's platform, Urie was showing a blissful expression.

“Urie!!!” Her voice cracked as she yelled.

Celeste let go of the platform in front of her and broke into a sprint, running towards Urie's direction. Her heart was racing as she kept hearing the urgent cries in her head.

“Ugh!!”

She covered her face with her arms as she felt an intense wave of heat preventing her from approaching any further. In an attempt to offset the hot temperature, she covered herself in frost and released a constant chill from her body, only to have the ice melt faster than it could form.

“Urie, wake up!!!” She screamed as loud as she could, but her words just wouldn't enter his ears.

Exhaustion from forcing her mana roots past their limits had caused her to stagger to the ground. Her lips quivered as she watched how Urie dissolved into red motes of light before being sucked into the mouth of the small flame on top of the pedestal. After eating Urie, the flame extinguished itself and vanished.

“He's gone...”

Rapidly blinking her eyes in disbelief, she stared in silence at the empty space in front of her, before breaking into uncontrollable tears.

- Erden Wall -

A tough battle was nearing its end as drops of blood rolled down a stern-looking man's face. He was currently engaged with a massive mana beast, one size larger than the rock drake Urie and company encountered.

Aside from the sharp protrusions emerging from its tough hide, it also had four powerful limbs and two large distinguishable horns on the top of its head.

A number of soldiers encircling them were shooting arrows and firing offensive magic at the beast, littering its body with multiple types of wounds in order to assist the grey-haired man.

At a distance of about half a kilometer away, a man with short black hair and proud eyes was swinging his sword, holding off another massive mana beast with a similar appearance. Two young men, one wearing a look of intelligence, the other displaying unruliness, were assaulting the beast on its sides with their weapons, alongside a different group of soldiers.

Earning a hard-won victory on both sides by encasing one beast in a thick layer of ice and the other in a mountain of rubble, the leaders of the two parties met to discuss post-battle details.

“Gideon! Looks like you've had a hard time!”

The black-haired man was smiling as he waved his hand towards Gideon Loeth. Gideon didn't reply. He was staring at the sky in the direction of Daerin.

“What's wrong? You look serious.”

“Undine is unsettled. I'm trying to talk to her but she's keeping silent.” Gideon replied.

“That reminds me, Gnomus was making a ruckus as well earlier, though I was too busy with the Bihorn to pay attention.” The black-haired man said.

“Something's going on.”

Undine had always been with him. She had appeared the day Gideon awakened his mana roots and taught him how to regulate his mana. From her broken sentences, he gained valuable advice on how to use and improve his magic.

He heeded every word that she had said as he felt that she genuinely cared about the well-being of himself as well as that of those around him. Gideon couldn't refuse whenever she had a request of him, one of which included a request for him to pick up a little girl from the outskirts of the forest.

At the moment, he was feeling ill-at-ease at the silence of the Water Spirit. Was she away?

- Elicia -

“Celeste!”

Elicia ran over and cradled the disheveled young girl weeping on the ground. This was the first time she had seen her cry. She didn't know what happened but a voice had appeared inside of her head and started yelling at her out of nowhere as she was relaxing in front of the second pedestal.

Her eyes shot open in surprise and saw Celeste running at full speed towards a direction filled with radiant red light. She swiftly followed but couldn't get any nearer as the heat was too unbearable for her. It all quickly disappeared a few seconds later, leaving a slumped Celeste down on the ground.

“Where's Urie?”

It was at times like this that her aunt had told her that a boy must comfort a girl. Elicia turned her head and searched around with her eyes for the boy with grey hair that would comfort the red-haired girl.

Her search was halted, however, when one of the pedestals, the first one, started humming. A blue, luminescent light expanded out from the pedestal, forming the silhouette of a woman. Blinding as it was, she could feel an aura of elegance coming from it that spread across the room.

The second pedestal, the one that she had held onto, followed right after with a brilliant yellow light and took the shape of a small old man with a cane. She felt a sense of concern and care from the light as something about it had resonated with her.

From the third pedestal, swirling green light had emerged. It was free-flowing and untethered, but at the same time sharp and swift. The light did a graceful dance around the pedestal before coming together on the ground to form the shape of another man in a position that was laid back.

The second to the last pedestal, which was covered in moss, glowed a pale brown. It wasn't as grandeur as the others but you could feel a strong aura of life and vibrancy from it. A woman sat on the pedestal with her leg raised and her hand to her chin.

She turned her attention to the final pedestal. Nothing came out from it.

“We were too late...”

Elicia was surprised as the blue-colored woman started talking, speaking with a voice that was as gentle as a mother's.

“That idiot lizard created such a mess! How does he expect us to clean this up!”

The tone of the green-colored man reminded her of the lanky old man with a receding hairline that occasionally accompanied Celeste and Urie to the academy.

“He has less than a decade's worth of mana left, it is understandable that he was rash. For now, we better look after the poor children.”

Elicia recognized the voice of the yellow pedestal as the one that had yelled at her earlier. It was like that of an affectionate grandfather.

“I'm holding on to him right now. Should we punish him? Or throw him back outside the wall? Or toss him over over the cliffs?”

The woman glowing pale brown was giggling as she spoke with a mischievous tone while giving out her suggestions.

“None of that. It's enough to just lock him up inside the academy.”

The mischievous woman issued a cry of disappointment when she heard the instructions of the gentle sounding woman.

“Now, about the children...”

The gentle sounding woman spoke and gestured towards Elicia and Celeste. Feeling the attention of the mysterious beings fall on her, Elicia started getting anxious.

- Urie -

“Where am I?”

Looking at a room filled with nothing but pitch-black darkness, Urie gathered mana to his right hand in an attempt to light a fire.

“Wha--!?”

Much to his surprise, a small flame had emerged from his hand according to his intentions.

“That was easy. I thought I was going to light myself on fire again.”

Around the room, he saw the same arrangement he was looking at before but with a few differences. The small mirror and the column of light were absent. The pedestals were still there, however, they were without the unique traits he had noticed earlier.

The pedestal in front of him also looked different from before. He swiped his finger and found that it was covered by a layer of black soot.

“What's going on? Where are Celeste and Elicia?”

He walked around the room with a torch in hand to look for his companions. Failing to find anyone, he shined his light on the corridor leading to the outside before deciding to walk through.

“This is--!?”

It was night time. An orb of light, looking much larger than the moon he was used to, was high up in the sky illuminating a city he was unfamiliar with. The only thing he recognized was a fountain with a statue of a dragon that was nearby.

“Erden's Tower? Why am I outside—”

Urie was startled. Something was rising up from the ground in front of him.

A dark, sinister-looking arm emerged from a shadow and held onto the floor. Lifting itself upwards, the head of what appeared to be a magic creature, peeked out from within the darkness and revealed its glowing eyes.