“Professor.”

Hulim Heyerar stepped forward, her footsteps light, her gaze calm and unwavering as she stared down at the broken man on the ground.

“You ask why this has befallen you? You have known the answer all along. Every choice you made, every path you walked—this is the end you chose for yourself.”

“I……”

Raelingrim Simo opened his mouth to speak, to beg, to rage—yet the words died on his lips, choked off by the weight of his own guilt and despair. In the end, he merely closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping in utter resignation.

“……Do it. Strike the final blow.”

Hulim raised her silver wand, pointing its tip straight at his heart.

For a heartbeat, the air hung still.

Then she lowered it, her resolve unbroken, her mercy a cold, deliberate choice.

“I could end you here and now. But to kill you would be an act of mercy—a kindness you do not deserve. The crimes you have committed, the lives you have destroyed… you owe a debt to every soul you have harmed. You will stand trial for them all.”

“You dare to—!”

Whoosh!

A jet-black streak of magic shot forth from her wand, striking Raelingrim square in the forehead before he could finish his curse.

His eyes rolled back in his skull, his body going limp. He slipped into unconsciousness at once, felled not by a killing blow, but by a stasis spell that trapped his mind in darkness.

Hulim did not slay him where he lay. She chose to spare his life, to drag him back to the Academy—to face the justice he had evaded for so long.

…

“My sincerest thanks, Miss Hulim.” Holstin Ming Dawson spoke solemnly, his gaze warm with gratitude and respect as he watched the guards drag Raelingrim away in chains.

“You have done the Academy an immeasurable service once more.”

“It was nothing more than a duty fulfilled.”

Hulim glanced at the retreating figure of Raelingrim, her voice flat, then turned to the Headmaster with a faint furrow of her brow:

“Headmaster, what fate awaits him now? What will the Academy do?”

Holstin fell silent for a moment, his expression hardening into unyielding resolve, his voice grave with the weight of judgment:

“Raelingrim Simo must pay a price equal to the innocent blood he has spilled, the suffering he has wrought. His crimes will not be forgiven, nor forgotten.”

“I see.”

Hulim nodded slowly, understanding the Academy’s unspoken verdict. There was only one end for a traitor like him—and one man’s suffering could never truly atone for the lives he had stolen.

But that was not her burden to bear. Not anymore.

“More than his fate, Miss Hulim,” Holstin said, his tone shifting to one of solemn earnestness, his gaze sharp with purpose,

“I wish to speak with you alone. If you have the time to spare?”

“……So long as it is not a lengthy discussion.”

“Fear not. It is only a short meeting. It will not take up much of your time.”

…

…

“Hulim, have you heard the news?!”

Inside a sweet shop, Miko bounced in her seat, her voice bright and bubbly as she leaned forward across the table.

“For the Group Tournament Examination—everyone has been given a perfect score! All of us!”

“I already know.”

Hulim nodded once, stirring a spoonful of honey tea in her cup, her expression unchanged.

“Really? You knew already?” Miko’s excitement dimmed slightly, her brow furrowing with concern as she stared at her friend. “But this will drag your overall ranking down, won’t it?”

It was an unspoken truth. Hulim had always neglected her regular coursework, her focus fixed on far greater things than classroom grades. Her theoretical exam scores had never been stellar, never enough to place her at the very top of the cohort on paper alone.

Even though she had claimed first place in the individual practical examination by an insurmountable margin, scores had their limits.

A perfect score was one hundred points, no more. She had claimed it easily—but the second-place student had scored ninety-nine, the third ninety-eight. The gap between her and the rest had been erased by the rigid ceiling of the Academy’s grading scale. Her hard-won dominance in battle meant nothing for her written rank.

“It does not matter.”

Hulim spoke softly, her gaze drifting to the window, to the street outside where students laughed and cried, celebrating their graduation.

“Graduation scores hold no meaning for me. And besides… for the sake of those who fell in battle, for their courage and their sacrifice—every single student here deserves this perfect score. They have earned it.”

There was another reason, unspoken, that lingered in her mind.

The short meeting Holstin had promised had not been a private conversation at all. It had been an audience with all of the Academy’s A-Rank Grand Professors—an assembly that never gathered in full, not unless the matter was of the utmost importance. Most of them were always away, traveling the realm, fulfilling their duties beyond the Academy’s walls.

Yet every last one of them had been summoned back for her.

Their request had been simple, their offer unprecedented: to keep her true strength a secret, to shield her from the prying eyes of the world—and to bestow upon her the title of Honorary Grand Professor of Manacos.

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It explained why every A-Rank adept had been present. They had come to witness the induction of a new legend, a child not yet fourteen elevated to the highest honor the Academy could give. She had not even received her student’s graduation certificate… the leap was too great, the responsibility too heavy.

She had not accepted the offer then. She had asked for time to think, to give her answer once she had walked out of the Academy as a graduate, not a prodigy elevated beyond her years.

In the end, grades truly meant nothing at all.

Hulim sighed quietly to herself, her thoughts drifting back to the present.

“Oh right, Hulim!” Miko piped up again, her voice laced with curiosity and faint anger, “I heard Raelingrim is still alive. You did not kill him?”

“He lives.” Hulim answered plainly, her gaze returning to her tea,

“He plotted against us, yes—but his greatest crimes were against the Academy, against the students and teachers he betrayed. He deserves to be judged by the very people he wronged.”

“I suppose that makes sense…” Miko murmured, her brow furrowed with uncertainty, “I wonder what the Academy will do with him?”

“By the Empire’s laws,” Alicia spoke up, her voice calm and reasoned, her eyes sharp with the knowledge of hard justice, “bondage would not begin to atone for his crimes. For the lives he stole, the chaos he sowed—he would be put to death without mercy.”

She paused, her tone softening slightly, her gaze distant with understanding:

“But the Academy has always had its own ways of meting out justice. Perhaps they will not follow the Empire’s blade.”

“No.”

Hulim shook her head, her voice firm, her insight unclouded by naivety.

“The Academy’s mercy for traitors is no greater than the Empire’s. If anything… it is far less.”

…

Elsewhere, before a quiet cemetery where the fallen students and teachers of the battle lay buried, their names carved into cold stone.

Holstin Ming Dawson stood at the head of the Academy’s professors, a small, plain wooden box held gently in his hands. He knelt, placing it on the ground before the graves, his head bowed in silent mourning, his voice solemn and low as he spoke to the spirits of the dead.

“To all who rest here in peace. I bring you one of the architects of your suffering, to stand witness to his crimes, to bear witness to your justice.”

……

A long, somber silence fell over the cemetery, broken only by the whisper of the wind through the trees.

When the mourning ended, Holstin rose, lifting the wooden box once more, his fingers brushing its surface gently, his voice heavy with regret and finality.

“What a pity.”

He murmured, his gaze fixed on the box, his words a quiet eulogy for a life wasted, a talent corrupted.

“You could have rested here among the honored dead, had you not strayed into the dark. But now… you will leave no name upon the Academy’s halls, no legacy to remember. You are erased.”

After that, Holstin and the other professors turned and left the cemetery, the wooden box clutched in his hands.

No one ever saw the box again.

No one ever learned what lay inside it.

No one ever knew if Raelingrim Simo was buried, or cast into the abyss, or left to rot in a cell for the rest of his days.

His fate was sealed, his name forgotten. That was all that mattered.

…

…

The day of graduation arrived at last.

Hulim, Miko, and Alicia stood side by side at the great iron gates of Manacos Academy of Magic, the stone walls towering behind them, the sun warm on their shoulders. They lingered there, silent for a moment, saying their final goodbyes to the home they had shared for three long years.

“……I cannot believe how quickly three years have passed.”

Alicia whispered, her gaze soft as she stared at the Academy gates, her voice thick with nostalgia and quiet emotion.

“They have flown by,” Hulim agreed, her voice gentle, a faint warmth in her tone that was rare for her,

“So much has happened, so much has changed… and most of all.”

Her eyes drifted to her two friends, her lips curving into the faintest, softest smile—a genuine smile, bright and warm, free of the cold resolve that usually lingered in her gaze.

“We have all changed, in ways we never thought possible.”

She thought back to the day she had first stepped into the Academy, a naive girl with little knowledge of the world, her power sealed at C-rank, her life hanging by a thread for daring to cross a petty underground faction.

Three years later, she knew the truth of the world, of Gulos, of the darkness that lurked beyond the light. She wielded power beyond her wildest dreams, power that made those petty factions seem like ants beneath her boot.

Her enemies were no longer small-time thugs. They were the entirety of Gulos—a dark empire that spanned the realm, a monster that had clawed its way to power on the blood of innocents.

Her fight was only just beginning.

“Miko. Alicia.”

Hulim called their names suddenly, her smile still soft, her gaze clear and bright as she locked eyes with them both.

“Hm?”

“What is it, Hulim?”

They turned to her, their eyes warm with affection, their full attention on her, waiting for her final words.

And then,

Hulim Heyerar spoke, her voice clear and light, her smile gentle, her words a promise and a farewell all at once:

“May fate guide our paths back together, someday.”

…

Clang! Clang! Clang……

Inside a sweltering forge, the dwarf blacksmith hammered away at a sheet of glowing steel, his arms moving in a steady, relentless rhythm, sparks flying from his anvil with every strike. He did not look up, did not even glance at the young girl who stood in the doorway, her presence unacknowledged for a long, quiet moment.

“Charkin.”

Hulim spoke, her voice cutting through the din of the forge.

“What is it?” The dwarf grunted, his hammer never slowing, his eyes fixed on his work, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Clang!

“I have graduated. I am leaving Langard.”

Clang!

“Is that so?” He rumbled, his tone gruff, uninterested, “Then go. Walk your path well.”

Clang! Clang!

“……That is all you have to say?”

Clang!

“What else is there to say?”

Clang!

“No final words? No farewell?”

Clang!

“???” The dwarf paused for a heartbeat, his hammer hovering above the anvil, his bushy eyebrows furrowing in confusion, then annoyance. “You want a gift? Fine. Help yourself to the shelf yonder—take whatever trinket catches your eye. My forge has no shortage of baubles for fools like you.”

“It is not that. I just……”

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The hammer fell once more, the sound deafening, the dwarf’s attention returning to his work as if she had never spoken at all.

Hulim fell silent, her lips twitching with a faint, fond smile. She stood there for a moment longer, then rose to her feet, turning toward the forge’s exit.

She was almost at the door when the hammer froze mid-strike.

The forge went silent.

Clang——!

The hammer slammed down one last time, then stilled completely.

“Oi, Hulim.”

Charkin’s voice rumbled from behind her, gruff and rough as always—but there was a faint warmth to it, a softness hidden beneath the stone and steel of his tone, a kindness he would never dare to voice openly.

“For folk like us. Folk who walk the sharp edge of the world, who wield power and steel and magic… it is never hard to find each other again.”

Clang! Clang! Clang……

The hammer fell once more, the forge roaring back to life, the dwarf’s attention fixed firmly on his work, as if he had never spoken at all.

Hulim turned her head, glancing back at the hunched figure of the dwarf blacksmith, his face hidden in shadow, his hands moving with the same steady rhythm as before.

This time, she understood.

She understood his words, his silence, his gruff affection.

She understood what it meant to be a wanderer, a warrior, a soul bound to the world by more than just blood and soil.

“……”

She smiled, a quiet, grateful thing, then turned and walked out of the forge without another word, her footsteps light, her heart calm.

She did not look back.

…

Tinkle~. Tinkle……

Before an unnamed apothecary’s shop, its wooden door closed tight, its windows shuttered, the sweet scent of special herbal tea that once lingered in the air long faded away. The shop had been closed for a long time now, its owner vanished without a trace.

Only a small wind chime hung above the door, its silver bells tinkling softly in the breeze, a faint, lonely melody that echoed through the empty street.

Hulim lingered at the door for a moment, her gaze soft as she stared at the closed wood, her lips curving into a gentle smile.

She did not knock. She did not call out. She merely stood there for a heartbeat, then turned and walked away.

She understood now.

She was no longer the naive girl who had stumbled into this shop three years ago, lost and alone, seeking shelter from the storm. She was stronger now, wiser now, a warrior forged by fire and blood.

And for folk like her, like the apothecary, like the dwarf blacksmith, like all who walked the path of power and purpose—

Fate was not a chain. It was a thread.

It wove their lives together, time and time again, no matter how far they wandered, no matter how long they were apart.

To say goodbye was meaningless.

Because they would meet again.

Of that, she was certain.

The apothecary’s shop stood silent, its door closed, its windows dark.

No one lingered at its threshold. No one called out for its owner.

Only the wind chime remained, its silver bells tinkling softly in the wind, a lonely melody that hung in the air long after she was gone.

Tinkle~. Tinkle……

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