“Aim for the head!” The words of an unruly young man resounded in her head. “Any beast would go down if struck down on their head!”

Celeste, holding the pale blue spear with both hands, swung it down towards the murky red apparition pushing itself off the ground. Her trajectory aimed to place the spear's edge on the creature's forehead but missed as it shifted its head slightly to the left.

Celeste's eyebrows knitted, slightly annoyed. Her spear's edge was buried on the creature's right shoulder, the sound of steam emerging coming from the point of contact.

“Don't stop moving, keep attacking. A beast wouldn't wait for you to deliver your next strike.”

“I know,” Celeste muttered.

Celeste quickly took a step back, evading the lash of the creature's arm, and poised herself for another attack. She shifted her weight on her legs and drew her shoulders, before snapping back towards the murky creature to deliver a thrust of her spear.

The speed of her attack was so fast that the creature couldn't react in time to dodge. It placed its arms in front of its head in a futile attempt to grab Celeste's spear but didn't even manage to slow down its approach.

The spear's edge pierced through the creature's hands and through a majority of the left arm, before making its way to the back of the creature's head.

“Good job, little red! You can stop there, we can sell the thing for a higher price if it has less damage.”

“No.” She didn't stop.

The creature wasn't a beast, it wouldn't stay down with just a single hole to its head. Celeste drew her spear and delivered a few more quick thrusts. Soon, the creature with only half of its body visible from the ground resembled a honeycomb.

Its body dropped down onto the pavement and receded back into its shadow before dissipating, leaving a spot devoid of moisture, and cracking due to high heat.

Celeste came closer and doused the spot with water conjured up from her hands. Although it evaporated as soon as it hit the surface, Celeste continued until the ground was no longer hot enough to turn her magic into steam.

She turned to look at the bench where she had left the little boy. The mother of the child had arrived by his side and met with her eyes. “Thank you” She seemed to be expressing, as she sat down to whisper a few words to her son.

The boy, who was spectating earlier whilst eating the half-eaten pastry he was given, approached Celeste shyly after being urged by his mother.

“Thank you, big sister!” He said, and gave Celeste a quick hug before running back to his mother with a red face. They left to continue their business a few seconds later.

The vendor from the shop that the mother had been haggling with and a few other passersby gave Celeste light applause before turning to each other and opening discussions.

“Another one of those things appeared.” A passerby said.

“It was smaller than I'd imagined,” another replied. “Did one of them really almost burn down the academy?”

“Yeah, saw it all with my own two eyes.” One of them declared, gesturing a pinching motion with his right hand. ” The one the red young miss just drove away was tiny compared to the one that appeared two years ago.”

“You mean those things get bigger?” The listeners were astounded.

“Two storeys high, would you believe?” Said the third speaker, embellishing his sentence by waving his arms around.

Celeste heard the chatter from the surroundings, “It was much bigger than that.” She whispered, and recalled the dialogue between the two grey-haired young men she had been with at the time.

“Hey Vigril, these huge things! Don't they look like Bihorns!?”

“Uncanny. Just be glad they don't charge around like them, else this fire would be harder to contain.”

One with a scar-faced unruly appearance, and another with an intelligent, proper-looking demeanor, Urie's two elder brothers.

Celeste went back to the bench and sat down. Leaning back, she took out an apple from the paper bag she had left there and took a bite.

“Two years...” She thought.

She raised her head and looked up at the clouds rolling around the blue sky. Two years since that hectic week, and two years after Urie had disappeared.

“Little Red! Long time no see, you seem to be doing well!”

Celeste remembered the day when Urie's second older brother, Kyron, arrived back at the Loeth Residence and spent a week with them before going back to the wall.

“You want me to teach you?”

She worked up some courage to ask for some guidance from him, but seeing his face grow smug after she had asked gave her a great deal of annoyance.

“Heh, sure! As long as you call me big brother~” He said.

With a bit of force, Celeste took a few more bites of her apple, leaving the core with the seeds intact before disposing of it properly after standing up from the bench. She picked up her paper bag and resumed her morning patrol.

An uneventful hour later, she made her way towards Daerin's magic academy. At the academy's entrance, the iron gate with a mural depicting a dragon, Celeste met up with Elicia who was waiting for her arrival.

“Celeste, what took you so long?” Elicia asked. “I even went back home and I still got here before you did.”

“I went on my rounds,” Celeste answered.

They began to walk through the academy gate, heading inside the campus. A few other students saw the pair entering, looking at them with a hint of respect.

“Oh, yeah. You have one with you.” Elicia chuckled, referring to the paper bag holding the few gifts Celeste had been given earlier. “Let me see what you got this time.”

Elicia took the paper bag from Celeste. While rifling through its contents, she inquired, “So? Did you meet any Nifyr on your way here?”

“Nifyr... I don't like calling them that. They sound like the monsters from my mother's bedtime stories.” Celeste recalled.

“So you always say, but it wasn't me that decided to call them that.” After getting to the bottom of the bag, Elicia stared at Celeste with suspicion. “She must've eaten the good stuff,” she thought, but didn't bother to ask her and instead went on with the topic.

“Anyways, did you?” She continued.

“I ran into one at the business district,” Celeste answered.

“Eh?” Getting an unexpected affirmation, Elicia did a double-take at Celeste's face. “What happened? Did another building burn down?” She softly exclaimed.

“No, the thing was small. I managed to get rid of it before it did any damage.”

“What a relief. It's a good thing we haven't been seeing any big ones lately, especially those extra-large ones. To deal with them we'd need help from—” Elicia paused between her sentences as her face had started to display a tinge of red. ”—We'd need help from...”

“--From Urie's older brothers.” Celeste continued, seeing as Elicia stopped talking and started covering her face. A futile attempt since even her hands had started to show flushed skin.

“Yeah, from his older brother.” Elicia replied meekly.

“His two older brothers.” Celeste repeated.

“Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if a big one had appeared.” Elicia bluntly stated while staring blankly ahead, her mind becoming preoccupied with pink thoughts.

Celeste rolled her eyes and didn't bother to refute. A minute later, they reached the academy's courtyard. A number of senior students like themselves were already there, awaiting the commencement of the graduation rites.

Celeste heard the sound of her own footsteps as she stepped onto the courtyard's brick pavement. The ground was no longer of grass and dirt like when she had first arrived, it had been renovated. In fact, it wasn't only the courtyard that had changed since four years ago.

Half of the academy building had been leveled two years ago, but not intentionally. It had since been replaced with newly made extensions. The layout of the academy, from a bird's eye view, would now be like a blocky semi-circle enclosing the courtyard and facing the direction of Daerin city's main road.

“Is everyone here?” Elicia wondered, her attention now back on current events. “Instructor Danny hasn't arrived, Oh wait— Headmaster Danny, it should be. I keep forgetting since he doesn't really have much of a presence.” She continued.

Celeste and Elicia took a spot for themselves amongst the front of the rows of senior students lined up in front of a large podium set up in the courtyard. There were no seats so they had to stand up.

“He's still much better than that old lizard we got locked up in the cage.” Celeste said, while gesturing her chin at a certain part of the academy building.

“The youngest ever to become a headmaster in Daerin Academy!” Elicia stressed, while twirling two of her fingers around. ”Also one of the only two that had managed to become headmaster of the academy. Although, if my aunt was still here, she could have taken the job, you know?” She joked.

“So you always say.” Celeste giggled. “How is your aunt by the way? Has she written back ever since she got called to the wall?”

“Occasionally, although my letters from the past few months haven't gotten any replies.”

“Hmm...” Celeste paused and fell into thought. Her grandfather Sacha hasn't been sending any letters recently either.

“What's wrong?” Elicia asked.

“Oh, no. It's nothing.” Celeste said, she didn't want to alarm Elicia as this might have just been a coincidence.

”The Headmaster's finally here.” Someone from beside them whispered.

Celeste and Elicia both looked towards the top of the podium in front of their gathering. A bespectacled man wearing a thick red robe adorned with golden embroidery had stepped up onto the podium, surrounded by a few of the academy's other staff.

Celeste scrutinized his appearance. Curled up light brown hair which never seemed to go back to its original straight appearance. A few of the strands growing white, probably from stress. The timid expression from his face was gone, replaced with a serious impression owing to his newly grown facial hair.

This was Headmaster Danny, who was previously their advanced class instructor.

All the students in the courtyard quieted down as they saw him walk up to a stand in the middle of the podium. After making his way there, Headmaster Danny spoke up.

“....”

For a few seconds, his lips moved, but his words were barely audible.

“....” He continued for about a minute before loud murmuring had begun to arise from the students below.

Headmaster Danny felt his face heat up. Underneath his robes, his palms were sweating, his legs trembling, and his feet were jittering. He closed his mouth and fell silent.

A few of the staff that were seated behind headmaster Danny were about to stand up to intercede but sat back down after seeing two familiar students walking up to the podium.

CLAP

A loud sound coming from the collision of the palms of one of the students that had come up silenced the crowd. The other had come up to headmaster Danny and gave him a few words of encouragement.