Thousand Tongue Mage

… One month.

It was both a quiet month and a long month.

The first reinforcements arrived at the academy five days after they noticed the distress coloured pheromone flares shooting up over the Wolkenkam Mountain Range, and they were De Balla Engineers from the Rampaging Hinterland Front in nothing short of a small marching army. When they came, they saw a ruined castle nestled atop a mesa, no way up, no way down. It took a day for them to construct three bridges north, southwest, and southeast of the academy, at which point they entered through the southwestern courtyard to notice all but one building had gone completely dark.

Fearing the worst, they rushed towards the centremost dorm building and knocked on the southwestern shelter gate.

Time flew by as the 'Amadeus Academy Infestation' became widespread news across the entire continent. No stone was left unturned, no detail left uncovered. Borough Inspectors from the Scorched Scarabs came to document the damages. Healers from the Nectarites came to assist with restorations. Writers from the Spinneret Society came to interview the survivors. All told, damages added up to thirty-one destroyed buildings, sixty-one dead mages, one hundred and thirty children, three hundred dead faculty and counting—and one Cicada God, burned and eviscerated from the inside-out.

Rather quickly, the story was twisted from that of 'hopeless survival against the Swarm' to one of 'fiery triumph in impossible odds'. The Spinneret Society didn't believe the surviving children at first, but it was incredibly difficult to dismiss the fact that the aura… that the thick, concentrated killing pressure of an Insect God still remained in the castle, though it wasn't lingering on any bug.

The children gave the writer four names. They put faces to those names. Those same names refused to entertain any writers from the Spinneret Society initially, but once thousands more people flooded into Amadeus Academy—representing warriors, emissaries, diplomats, and couriers from nearly every major faction on the continent—those names began to relax. They finally understood people from all across the continent were here to help them rebuild, to take care of the children, so when the Spinneret Society approached them to ask for more details, four names became only one.

Of the four names, three pointed at the one, and the moment the Spinneret Society laid eyes upon the man who was relaxing, but couldn't—three emissaries, twelve couriers, fourteen writers, twenty healers, thirty-four inspectors, fifty-two warriors, froze and clammed up before the man's killing pressure.

He was no bug, but his aura was unmistakably tinged with that of 'Fate Spinner' Nona's, youngest of the Magicicada Witches.

… For the first time in sixty-one years of humanity's endless war against the Swarm, an Insect God had been killed by nothing short of a ragtag group of teachers and children, none of whom had any professional training with their classes.

It was both a quiet and a long month.

But the tides of war were changing, and the continent held its breath as they awaited Amadeus Academy's next move.

Sora wasn't just going to wait for the academy to make their move, though. She knew very well, though she was but the newest writer in the Spinneret Society, that good stories never 'drop' into people's laps. They must be hunted. They must be lured into webs of attraction. If she had time to sit on her ass outside the academy like most of the other writers from less well-known information trading organisations, she had time to climb the cliffs up to the academy with her own two hands.

So that was exactly what she did.

Panting, sweating, gasping for warm and soothing breaths, she threw herself over the edge of the hundred-metre-tall cliffside and rolled onto her back. It'd taken her the better part of ten hours to get up here. She wasn't exactly an athletic person despite her class. Her gloves were shredded from the sharp rocks on the cliffside, and her palms were bleeding. No good. No good at all. She needed her hands and fingers to hold a pen.

Great, she thought. Now what?

Heaving, groaning, she forced herself to sit upright and straightened her glasses as she peered down the sheer rock face. She gulped. She wasn't that good with heights, either. She could see the entirety of the Wolkenkalm Mountains where she sat, and she could also see where she'd started: a tiny, tiny mesa far in the distance where tens of thousands of little human figures were still crowding around a gated bridge. Said bridge ran along a natural rock formation that'd lead people from the bottom all the way up to Amadeus Academy's southwestern building, but right now, there were hired mercenaries keeping outsiders from entering the academy. The legendary bug-tamers further from the southeast.

If she were any less ambitious to be the very first writer to report on the academy's full story, she'd still be part of those tens of thousands of little people, shouting and waving their fists at the hired mercenaries to let them up into the academy. However, she knew the Tamera. She'd written about them before. They were loyal mercenaries-for-hire who'd never betray their employers once they accepted payment, and as far as she knew, Amadeus Academy had paid about a hundred of them to stand guard around the academy until it was fully reconstructed.

She would've never been allowed to enter the academy the normal way, so the treacherous cliffside it was.

In hindsight, she should've at least brought a safety rope, or learned how to climb, or practised scaling a lower cliff a few hundred times first, but damn if those ten hours weren't the most exhilarating ten hours of her life. She'd never been so close to death so many times before.

… Heh.

I'm alive.

Chuckling to herself—half out of exhaustion, half out of pure excitement—she pushed herself to her feet and staggered away from the cliffside, readjusting the straps on her satchel as he pushed her glasses up her nose. She was in some sort of courtyard. It was bright and early in the morning, and sunlight spilled down from cloudless skies to illuminate the old castle all prettily and mightily. Dozens of officially-hired builders were already working around the courtyard to replant trees, move away giant chunks of rock debris, and fix windows and banners and archways all over.

She immediately straightened the collars of her cloak. Patted sand and dust off her shoulders. Ran her fingers through her hair and combed it back, making sure it was still tied back. With a leather satchel around her shoulders, a modest travelling writer's attire over her skeleton-thin body, and an oversized pair of round glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose, she knew she looked positively adorable—and impressively professional. She felt she could easily stride around the halls of the academy without anyone questioning if she was an official hire with a job to do, so she walked straight into the courtyard with all the confidence of a local teacher.

As expected, nobody questioned her. Sure, a few Beetleborn Builders hauling giant stone blocks around the courtyard gave her strange looks, and the on-site coordinator in a flowery dragonfly-patterned dress squinted at her, but nobody stopped her as she strode right through all of the construction work and entered the nearest building.

This should be… the southeastern performance building.

Sunlight spilled through the broken windows, painting jagged patterns of light on the castle's battered stone floors. She adjusted her pen behind her ear, keeping it ready like a dagger. Amadeus Academy was more ruin than castle now, its grand halls scarred by fierce battles. Most walls were broken, most doors were punched through, and there were entire hallways blocked off by collapsed ceilings. The place was absolutely bleeding with a story to tell, and for starters…

She felt like interviewing some people.

As she hummed with her hands in her pockets, children darted through the wreckages of the first floor of the southeastern building. They shouted orders, lugged giant debris out onto the courtyard, and swept away smaller rubble with brooms too big for their hands.

They weren't with the builders outside. No good-mannered travelling construction hire would willingly employ children. In that case, her eyes immediately lit up—they must be the children of Amadeus Academy who'd survived the infestation.

She stepped lightly over a cracked tile, her boots crunching on shattered glass as she took out her little leather-bound notebook from under her cloak. In truth, rumours about this academy had always swirled in the Spinneret Society. A secret orphan academy run by Magicicada Mages? Perhaps there was an interesting story to be documented. An orphan academy run by Magicicada Mages that also doubled as a rehabilitation ground for children who'd eaten too many bugs without systems? Now that was much, much more interesting. And seeing the children sprinting around her now, completely ignoring her presence, she couldn't ignore the evidence.

Her eyes landed on a young boy dragging a giant chunk of rock across the cracked ground, heading towards a door leading to the courtyard outside. It wasn't his unnatural feat of strength that caught her attention, but rather, the crab claw that he had for a left arm.

So, before the boy could leave her sight, she slid in front of him and crouched to his level, resting her hands on her knees.

He froze immediately, obviously taken aback by her sudden appearance.

"Hi!" she said, giving him the brightest, most charming smile she could muster. "I'm Sora, newest hire in the Spinneret Society! Can I ask you a few questions about what happened here?"

The boy didn't respond. No twitch of a brow, no twist of a lip, nothing. It was only now that she gasped and felt like hitting herself on the head. Of course he wouldn't know how to speak the Lyandris tongue. She came straight from there the moment she heard about what happened here, so she hadn't had the time to mentally reset herself.

Let's see what we're dealing with here…

The Ograntha tongue. The Maloktra tongue. The Zadara tongue. She started with the Mori Masif tongues at first, but quickly realised—and felt like hitting herself again—that the only way he could possess a crab claw for an arm was if he'd originated from the far western Deepwater Legion Front. Only westerners have access to fresh crustaceans. Moving west of the continent, she tried the Marican, Bravescan, Doranqueno tongues near the coastline of the far west, before noticing the boy's irises were strangely sharp, turquoise in colour. A signature trait of people living north of the far west. Now it came down brute-forcing her way through the rest of the north-trending far western tongues, one sentence at a time until she reached the Castalyn tongue—spoken only in a small salt-purifying village bordering the Deepwater Legion Front and the Plagueplain Front.

"Hi!" she said again, giving him the brightest, most charming smile she could muster. "I'm Sora, newest hire in the Spinneret Society! Can I ask you a few questions about what happened here?"

His eyes widened suddenly, and she couldn't help but grin.

Hah.

I've still got it.

But then the boy, fidgeting and looking around awkwardly, suddenly bolted. He understood her words, and he decided he didn't want to say anything. He let go of his giant rock and sprinted away, black-shine academy shoes pitter-pattering along the hallway, while she shot a hand out and almost shouted at him to stay. It wasn't like she was going to eat him or anything… but again, in hindsight, she should've realised how unnerving it must've been for him to be approached by a complete stranger, stopping him in his tracks and flicking through a hundred different tongues right in front of his face just to identify his mother tongue.

It's alright, though.

There's still tons of other children around here.

The shattered halls of the southeastern building echoed faintly with whispers and hurried footsteps as Sora pressed on, pen in one hand, notebook in the other. She stopped and tried speaking to a few more children—slipping between tongues as easily as turning a page—but each encounter ended the same. The children scattered from her like leaves caught in a sudden breeze, their gazes wary and haunted. Even her super charming and pretty smile, something she considered her most reliable weapon, faltered against whatever scars they were carrying in their hearts.

Still, she wasn't about to give up. Her notebook was empty, and she hadn't climbed all the way up here just to get caught by security eventually and—

"What are you doing here, Miss?"

The voice came from behind her. Sharp, boyish, and completely unafraid.

Sora whirled, eyebrows lifting, and saw a young boy—about ten, maybe eleven years old—standing at the far end of the corridor in full, tidy gold and black uniform. Sunlight fell through the broken windows on the side and washed over his short blond hair like a halo. His legs, however, were distinctly not human. Long, armoured, spindly, they bent backward in sharp angles and were covered in fine, bristly hairs. Cricket legs.

And he'd just called out to her in the local Sterngott tongue, which made her want to hit herself again. Why hadn't she thought they all spoke the same tongue here? Why, of the hundreds of tongues she'd just flipped through, hadn't she tried the local tongue first and foremost?

Shaking her head, she smiled gently and walked towards him, twirling her pen as she knelt right in front of him. "The answer will depend," she started, switching to the Sterngott tongue, "on whether or not you're willing to be interviewed, Mister…"

The boy tilted his head, evidently perplexed by her presence. "Titus. Monitor of class 2-B."

"Mister Titus!" she said gleefully, scribbling her very first name down in her notebook. "You're the very first person here willing to talk to me, you know? Oh, I'm so grateful to you! You wouldn't mind answering a few questions, would you? I heard the children of the academy played a part in taking down the Magicicada Witch known as 'Nona, the Fate Spinner'! Is that true or false?"

Titus shifted on his cricket legs, his gaze wandering to the broken window to the side.

For a moment, he said nothing. All he did was stare out at the burning sun like it held all the answers he couldn't say out loud.

"Not really," he murmured finally.

Sora hummed, her pen still darting around the pages as she jotted down descriptions of his uniform. "Not really? What do you mean?"

"We didn't really do anything," Titus said softly. "Our teachers did most of the work."

"Oh, yes, I'm aware! I'm planning on interviewing them after this, but you don't have to be modest!" she said, winking at him. "If a bee can boast its honey, why shouldn't you celebrate your victories? I heard the children of Amadeus Academy played a crucial role in the final battle against Nona! You all played your academy's anthem to shatter her eardrums, right? Can you tell me more about that?"

"Crucial… role?"

"Mhm? Wouldn't you say all of you were extremely brave when you marched out of the safety of your dorm just to help your dear teachers out?"

"The teachers were brave," Titus muttered. "We were brave too, I… guess. A little. But she was braver." Her pen stopped mid-sentence as his voice trembled slightly, and he looked down at his clawed feet. "She was the one who was actually courageous. The rest of us in class 2-A, 2-B, and 2-D… didn't really do anything."

The air between them grew heavy, and Sora felt his guilt settling in her chest like a stone.

She tilted her head, watching him closely.

"She?" she asked, her voice quieter now.

Titus nodded, his small hands gripping the hem of his jacket. His lips quivered as he tried to continue, but the words came out in fragments. "She… she said she'd play fireworks with me… after. I wanted to be her friend. I wanted to say… sorry for ignoring her for so long. I wanted… I wanted…"

Then he choked on his own sentence, his face twitching as a small tear rolled down his cheek.

For her part, Sora hesitated, the tip of her pen hovering over her notebook. She didn't need to turn around to sense it—there were others behind her. The same children who'd run from her earlier were lingering in the shadows, peeking around the corners, listening in on their conversation, and their own faces were just as streaked with quiet tears.

Titus sniffled, wiping at his face furiously, and Sora tilted her head back until she was staring straight up at the ceiling.

The deepest wells yield the clearest water, but only if drawn with care.

And I am no well keeper.

So she closed her notebook, flicked her pen back onto her ear, and slipped a hand under her violet cloak.

"I believe true bravery is too busy standing firm to bother boasting," she said gently, pulling out a small, wrapped piece of candy and holding it out to him. "Thank you for the brief interview, Titus. Do you know where I might find your teachers? I'd like to ask them a few questions, too."

Titus hesitated before taking her piece of candy, his fingers brushing hers briefly. "They're… all over the academy right now. We're all going to gather in a few hours for the funeral, but right now, I think… I only know where Mister Tadius is."

"Where?"

"Top of the broken northern building. He's growing something there, and there's lots of people trying to talk to him there." Then he sniffled and wiped his eyes again, giving her a quick smile. "I don't think you'll get to talk to him, Miss…"

"Sora," she said, holding out a hand. "And don't worry about it. I'll get to him."

With that, she stood up straight, turned, and walked away. She was certain the children were all still very confused about who she was and what she was planning on doing, but explaining would take too much time, and she didn't want to disturb them any more than she already had.

Besides, it was true that the teachers were the ones who'd done most of the hard work taking down the Magicicada Witch. The children's interviews would be a nice bonus to put on the side column of an article, but they weren't essential. They weren't going to spread the story as far and as wide as the story deserved to be known across the continent.

She needed to hear from the people who'd fought Nona with their own two hands.

Sora meandered through the labyrinthine halls of northmost Amadeus Academy, one hand in her pocket, the other trailing idly against the old stone walls. Ruined as it may be, the northern building really was bigger than it looked from outside. Old castles had a habit of folding in on themselves, swallowing up extra rooms, entire floors, and secret stairwells leading to nowhere, but… she wasn't lost.

The scent of damp soil and crushed leaves led her upward.

Eventually, she found herself at the topmost chamber of the academy—though, calling it a chamber was generous. Once upon a time, it'd been a roof. Now, the ceiling was blown clean open, sunlight pouring through in great golden columns, and it illuminated a stunningly overgrown botanical garden.

She paused at the doorway, breathing it in.

A garden should've felt out of place in a run-down academy where most things festered before they bloomed, and yet it looked so natural in this chamber, curling through broken brick and fractured glass like nature had been waiting for a chance to reclaim something.

The air teemed with life.

Clusters of doctors, pharmacists, alchemists, and researchers swarmed between the overgrown vegetation, some bent over notepads, others hunched around peculiar flora, deep in discussion. Sora recognised a good handful of them—an occupational hazard, when one's job involved traveling from one place to the next spinning words and catching stories—and she didn't know any of them to be cowards when it came to poaching brilliant researchers from other organisations, but something was a little off.

For all their research, and all their eagerness to inspect and prod the strange plants sprouting from the cracks in the chamber, none of them were entering the small dome-shaped greenhouse at the heart of the garden.

What's this?

All of you getting mopey and depressed over something, now?

For her part, Sora didn't hesitate. She slipped past all of them, pushed open the creaky glass door, and stepped inside.

The air changed immediately.

It was bright. Almost painfully so. Sunlight filtered through the glass walls, catching on flowers that grew in great tangled cascades, clinging to the walls, to the ceiling, creeping into every available space. The wooden floorboards smelled of crushed petals and bitter chemicals. Surrounding her on all sides, alchemical equipment bubbled away on long wooden tables, filling the room with soft, rhythmic gurgles. Oh, and the books, she couldn't miss those—mountains of them, toppled over and scattered across the floor, all left open mid-thought.

She skimmed a glance over some of them as she trudged forward. Bugs. All of them. Bug species, brood nests, infestation patterns, and bioarcanic constructs. People say a researcher who dabbled in everything was no researcher at all, but in this particular case, Sora would beg to differ. Whoever wrote those notes and books sure seemed like they knew what they were talking about.

And there, sitting on a high stool at the far end of the greenhouse, was the author. The only person in the room. He was hunched over a workbench, back turned towards her, his hands occupied with a delicate bit of bioarcanic engineering. She couldn't see what he was fiddling with, but she wasn't here to talk about that anyways.

She cleared her throat.

The man startled so hard he lost his balance, toppling from his stool in a flurry of limbs. Glass clinked. Pages rustled. Just as she was about to chuckle, he scrambled upright in a blur of motion, looking incredibly embarrassed.

"If you're here to drag me into some clinic or bribe me into a research department, you're wasting your time," he muttered, already pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "I'm not—"

"Not here for your soul, blightborn." Sora held up a hand, reaching into her cloak and pulling out her notebook with her other hand. "I'm Sora, writer for the Spinneret Society. I'm here for an interview with Mister Tadius, Amadeus Academy's one and only biological sciences teacher."

Julius Tadius blinked at her, still wary, but the tension in his shoulders clearly slackened. Slowly, he perched back onto his stool, half-turning back to his work table.

"How'd you know I was a blightborn?" was the first thing he asked.

"You look like you're from the Plagueplain Front," she said pointedly. "Green eyes, all husk, no muscle, and you sway on your chair like a weed in the wind. 'Tadius' is also a rather common household name in the Plagueplain Front, meaning 'death-obsessed'—not the best of meanings, I'm afraid, but it is just about fitting for men of the Plagueplain Front."

If nothing else, Julius looked a little surprised. He curled the corner of his lips into a tiny smile before turning back around to work on his project. "You're the first to tell me that. The other researchers here to recruit me didn't even know my last name."

She grinned. "Does that entitle me to an interview, then?"

"Interview about what?"

"The infestation," she replied curtly, stepping further into the greenhouse, careful not to disturb any of the mess. "As one of the four teachers who led the attack against Nona, youngest of the Magicicada Witches, what was your role in all of that?" She tilted her head. "I hear you're a Magicicada Mage now, aren't you? One of the only four remaining in the world. Your Art is… 'God Tongue', isn't it? The magic to infuse bioarcanic essence into your voice and make sound frequency do your bidding, something of the sort?

Julius was quiet for a moment.

Then, without looking around, he exhaled a soft, humorless chuckle.

"My 'role' in the attack against Nona?" he murmured. "I didn't do enough is what I did. We were supposed to save the Headmistress, return to the dorm, and get the kids out of the academy." He gestured vaguely around him: at the equipment, the books, and the half-finished vials and tinctures. "I should've brewed a Carapathy blocker for her on the road as well. I should've done that, hm?"

Carapathy. Now that wasn't a term Sora heard much of. Most people simply referred to the phenomenon of overconsumption of bug meat as 'mutating wildly', but indeed, 'Carapathy' was the official scientific term used by researchers and academics in the northwest and northeast.

Two things Sora noted down: Julius had been trying to make a 'blocker', and it was supposed to be for 'her'.

'Her' again.

Who was this 'her', she wondered?

Sora lowered herself onto a nearby stool, crossing one leg over the other as she continued scribbling. "Life doesn't always molt the way we want it to."

Julius huffed a quiet laugh. "No," he agreed. "It doesn't."

She tapped her pen against the edge of her notebook, watching him carefully. "And you sound like someone who's had his wings clipped more than once. What's your story, Mister Tadius?"

He hesitated. Then, with a small shrug, he said, "Like a few others, I came from the Plagueplain Front. You already know that. Nothing unique about that. But…" He trailed off, rolling a vial between his fingers. "Men are not men in the Plagueplain Front. I was a resource, a bit less than a person. I'm sure a well-travelled writer like you has seen many like me: frail little children with no control over their lives, used by others, passed around like tools that didn't belong to themselves."

Sora didn't speak. Julius exhaled.

"But this place," he said, voice softer now. "This academy… I've had nothing but doubt since the Headmistress brought me here. I had friends. I had a family. I have…" He hesitated, hands pausing for a moment. "Students who look up to me. I think. A little. But in the back of your head, a blightborn will always think they belong nowhere else but the blight. All these years, I've never felt like I truly belonged."

With that, he finally turned, properly meeting her gaze. His glasses caught the light, making his eyes unreadable, but his expression was soft. Gentle.

Hiding a stewing, boiling anger.

"You want to know what happened, Spinneret?" he said quietly, "During the infestation, I was the 'team' healer. I was the biological support. And even though I'd only been with the three of them for a few hours that night, and even though they were the most painful and scariest hours of my life, they were the most satisfying hours of my life."

His fingers flexed, and he looked back at his worktable.

"I was happy my friends needed me," he whispered. "I felt like I was home."

Sora kept writing—kept scribbling—until she felt there was nothing more she could write.

So the rumours were true.

Julius Tadius doesn't know everything because he was the last addition to the Witch-Killing.

"... And now?" she asked. "What are you doing now?"

Julius' gaze swept across the books, the equipment, the vials bubbling away quietly.

"Life doesn't go the way we always want it to," he said. "And death is common in this world—especially where this academy is—but if there's one thing I regret… it's that I couldn't save her."

Sora didn't respond to that.

Julius exhaled through his nose, reaching for another vial. "You ask me what I'm doing now?" he mumbled. "I'm making sure there will never be children like her again. Ones who show up on my doorstep. Ones I can't treat."

And the greenhouse fell silent but for the quiet bubbling of alchemical concoctions.

Eventually, Sora twirled her pen between her fingers and slipped it onto her ear, grinning from ear to ear.

"And you won't be joining any clinic or research department from any of the academic institutions here to grab you?" she asked, glancing towards the door. "Before I heard any rumours about their presence here, I heard the rumours about you as a researcher. They want you. They're all waiting for you out there."

Julius hummed, tilting a vial against the sunlight. "They can try to grab me. They won't get very far."

The overgrown vegetation in the greenhouse trembled very lightly at that, and she chuckled under her breath as a few man-eating flowers started curling over her head, coming alive at the Magicicada Mage's spell.

"Fair enough," she murmured. She closed her notebook with a decisive flick and stood. "This was all very good information. Thank you for your time, Mister Tadius."

Julius didn't turn around, but he did wave her farewell over his shoulder. "Don't come back. I don't know how you got in here with the Tamera guarding the bridge, so don't go telling your other writer friends about the way in."

"My lips are sealed."

She was already halfway to the door when she glanced back.

"One last thing, actually," she said. "You wouldn't happen to know where the other teachers are right now, would you?"

Compared to the botanical garden, Sora's next destination wasn't exactly easy to find. She was told to find the courtyard with the most manly shouts and roars, but between the midday winds, the construction work, and the buzz of orchestral music playing nearly non-stop from the southeastern end of the academy, it took her two or so meandering hours before she found the courtyard below the dorm building.

She didn't exactly know what she'd been expecting, but a normal, completely mundane courtyard about the size of a wealthy lord's backyard garden wasn't it. Under the midday sun, the courtyard was a hub of discipline and sweat, its sandy ground pounded flat by the feet of tireless children. It was quite literally just a giant sandpit with wooden fences running along the rectangular edges.

But the man built with pure muscle—tanned skin gleaming with sweat, veins bulging like roots beneath stone—led his class of children through their drills like they were in the honoured halls of the northern swordsmanship halls. They took exercising very seriously. The twenty or so children ran laps, did push-ups, performed aerobics, and hung onto the man's every word. When he barked at them to move faster, they responded without hesitation. When he barked at them to rest for a water break, they whipped out their water gourds and drank in perfect unison.

What are they, some sort of organised military?

Well, she was exaggerating. But by the edges of the courtyard, about a hundred warriors, soldiers, and bug-slayers lingered like hungry vultures. They were the ones from actual militaries across the continent, and their eyes were sharp, whispering among themselves as they watched the children exercise. That made Sora click her tongue.

These teachers sure are popular, huh?

She couldn't blame them, though. That was why she was here too.

But the moment she tried taking a step out into the sun and into the courtyard, the man glared squarely at the onlookers, his gaze sweeping across the fences.

He didn't have to tell them to stay out of his lesson for all of them to know better.

In an instant, the soldiers flinched, the warriors stiffened, and the lone bug-slayers looking for a competent companion scurried off like beetles caught under the sun.

… Well.

He froze almost all of them.

Sora stepped into the courtyard with spring in her steps. The muscled man didn't spare her a glance. He went right back to leading the children, shouting numbers as they continued counting off their push-ups.

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If I can't get an interview either way…

She might as well get a feel for things, so she set her notebook down in the sand, slipped off her cloak, rolled up her sleeves—and then, without a word, she joined in.

She ran. She stretched. She dropped and pushed and jumped and sprinted. And, sweet larvae-hatching hell, she was dying. Her limbs felt like shredded silk. Her lungs burned like they'd been stuffed with hornet venom. These kids—these scrawny-looking, wide-eyed kids—were sprinting laps around her while she panted and swayed like a beetle flipped onto its back.

I mean, every last person in my household is pretty frail, but this is ridiculous.

She wasn't weak. No, she wasn't. She had a Spinerret's endurance—the kind of stamina that let her climb vertical cliffs for ten hours straight—but her body simply couldn't handle working out in the sun,

So, two hours passed. Two excruciating, muscle-burning, soul-extracting hours. When the man finally called the lesson to an end, Sora immediately collapsed. Her limbs were gel. Stars twinkled in her eyes. A few children jogged up to her, faces bright with something between amusement and admiration.

One of them, a wiry little girl with a shaved head, patted Sora on the back.

"You didn't die!" the girl chirped.

"Close call," Sora wheezed.

Another boy, no older than ten, squatted next to her. "You kept up though, Miss!"

"Mm." She wiped sweat off her forehead. "That's… one way to put it."

The kids grinned, nodded approvingly, then ran off around the courtyard to kick the displaced sand back in place. She had no idea how they still had stamina left to run, but Carapathy, while potentially life-ending and completely irreversible, was a powerful disease. She was sure their late-stage insect mutations were lending them more strength than half of the warriors and soldiers standing beyond the fences had combined.

Then, a shadow fell over her.

A massive, calloused hand extended into her vision.

The muscled man offered her a hand up.

… Hah.

She took it, letting him haul her upright with the ease of someone picking up a sack of grain. He led her to a wooden bench at the edge of the courtyard, and she dropped onto it with a heavy thud as she continued gasping for breath, wiping sweat off her brows.

While the man dropped a water gourd into her lap and gestured for her to rehydrate, she shook her head with a tired grin.

"Household rule," she said curtly. "The hand that gives is often the hand that writes the debt—take nothing, owe nothing."

The man quirked a brow, but didn't push. Instead, he took a deep gulp from the gourd himself as he sat down next to her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Sora reached into her backpocket for her own water flask, watching the kids run around.

"They're tough," she noted.

"They should be." His voice was steady, proud. "I'm the one training them, after all."

"Does that mean you're Marcus Evander, Amadeus Academy's one and only fitness teacher?"

His gaze settled on her, assessing. "And you are?"

"Sora. Writer for the Spinneret Society," she replied, holding out her hand as she took a deep swig of her flask. "Just another writer curious about the story here."

He waved her hand away. "I've told it plenty already. Just ask any of the warriors standing around the courtyard looking like buffoons. They'll tell you—"

"I'm not particularly interested in the plot," she countered smoothly. "Not the battle details, not the foes you went up against. It's true that's what you've told everyone. No, I want the character study: I want to know Marcus Evander, the one and only fitness teacher in Amadeus Academy." She gestured to his massive arms, his chiseled frame. "If you don't mind me asking, just how does a man manage to achieve this physique?"

He was silent for a long moment.

Then, finally, he shrugged.

"I was an orphan, like everyone else," he said simply. "Picked up from the Hellfire Caldera Front."

Sora raised a brow, but she wasn't surprised. Children from the Hellfire Caldera Front weren't just strong. 'Caldera' was a cognate word for 'cauldron' taken from the northwest and the southwest, and it meant all humans born under the northern sun were forged in fire, shaped by lives of relentless conflict. Suffice it to say, of the Six Swarmsteel Fronts, the far north had it the worst. It had the most number of active Insect Gods with the least number of warriors and bug-slayers to defend it.

Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Children do not get childhoods there. We grow up fast. We grow up strong, or we don't grow up at all." He exhaled. "Even after the Headmistress picked me up and took me to this place, I never stopped training. Never stopped getting stronger."

"Because the mountain that crumbles into dust is never a refuge to begin with."

"That's right."

Sora studied him. His massive frame. His quiet, simmering intensity. This was a man who'd built his own strength because the world demanded it of him.

So it was a bit strange hearing him chuckle.

"But even now," he murmured, shaking his head, "even though I'm stronger than ever… I'm still not as strong as her."

Sora felt she'd always been good at reading a room. And right now, the room—the courtyard—was thick with unspoken hunger.

The soldiers and warriors loitering at the edges weren't just here for a casual look. They watched Marcus with the kind of gaze a starving man reserved for a feast just out of reach.

They wanted him.

They wanted his strength, wanted to test it, measure it, and claim it.

So she let the silence stretch for a little bit before finally speaking, "They'd probably beg to differ. They want to recruit you and see how far these muscles of yours can go in a battle."

Marcus snorted, scowling at the gathered onlookers. "Pointless."

"Is it?"

"Strength isn't for beating people up," he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It is one application of strength, but it is a very shallow one."

Sora hummed, noncommittal as Marcus glanced down at his hands—flexing them, watching the way the veins shifted beneath his skin.

"I spent my entire student life getting stronger. Developing my body, pushing it to its limits. I thought… " He exhaled, shaking his head. "I thought I'd graduate, return to the front lines in the Hellfire Caldera Front, and become another soldier in a long line of soldiers."

Sora listened.

"But then I became a teacher." A wry smile tugged at his lips. "And I realised the strength I had—the strength I worked so damn hard to build—wasn't worth a damn thing when a kid missed their home and needed comfort. Or when I had to help carry the weight of their futures."

He clenched his fists. They trembled, ever so slightly.

"This—" He shook his head, smiling down at his own hands. "This isn't nearly enough strength, Spinneret. You say the mountain that crumbles into dust is never a refuge to begin with, but ask the mountain how tall it must be, and it will answer with silence."

Marcus Evander, the walking fortress. A man who'd reportedly went toe to toe with the Magicicada Witch with his bare hands. And yet, here he was, admitting that there was something greater than all that muscle.

This information would make for a great background article.

"It's strange," he murmured. "I know I'm still lacking in strength, and even though a terrible calamity has just befallen this place—even though most of my colleagues are gone, and there's only four of us left—right now, more than ever, I'm excited for the future."

"Excited?"

Marcus chuckled. "There's still an entire realm of strength I have yet to truly touch. I may have only joined your 'Witch-Killing' halfway through, but during those two days, I felt like… I had a taste of true strength."

A realm beyond muscle. Beyond physicality.

Then, his expression hardened. His gaze swept across the courtyard, sharp and cutting as a blade.

"And that's why I won't leave this academy and go with any of those suckers," he growled, eyes locked onto the soldiers who still lingered, who still hoped. "They care about physical strength. Physical power. But none of them can take care of my children like I'm trying to learn how to. None of them can offer my children true safety."

"... You said you were planning on graduating and becoming a soldier," she mused. "So tell me: do you feel like you're at home now?"

Marcus didn't even hesitate.

"More sure than ever," he said. "Amadeus Academy is my home, and I will be its fitness teacher for the rest of my life. It's what this boy wants to do."

Sora couldn't help but smile softly.

A simple story for a simple man, from beginning to end.

He smirked upon noticing her smile. "You wanted a good story for your article, didn't you?"

"Of course I did."

"Well, that's mine." He leaned back, stretching his arms. "Sorry if it won't get people to buy your paper or book or whatever you publish articles in, but my story just isn't very interesting."

"I wouldn't say that."

Her mind turned, sifting through all the things she still didn't know about him—like the one thing that'd been bothering her ever since he, Julius, and Titus first said it.

Who's this 'her' they're all referring to?

A fellow teacher?

The Headmistress?

And oh, Sora wanted to ask. She wanted to pry like the Spinneret she was, but instead, she closed her eyes, dipped her head, and clapped her hands together in the northern farewell gesture.

"Thank you for your time, Mister Evander." she said, standing, stretching her arms, and taking another swig from her flask. "I will say, though—man is not the mountain that answers with silence, but the climber that answers with courage. Perhaps one day, I will see you amongst the ranks of the continent's greatest bug-slayers?"

Marcus blinked at her.

Then, after a moment, he shrugged and gestured towards something off to the side.

Her violet cloak and notebook, still resting in the sand.

"You're not gonna write any of this down?" he asked.

She smiled, tapping her temple.

"Some people call me the Hundred Tongue. I'm pretty good at memorising words, if I do say so myself."

Marcus huffed out a laugh. "If you say so."

Sora bent down, picking up her things. As she dusted off her cloak and slung it over her shoulders, though, she cast the blaring southeastern building an amused look.

"Say, Mister Evander," she said. "How much of a bother would I be if I disturbed the music teacher in the middle of her performance?"

She wasn't in a rush to get to her next destination. She knew exactly where she had to go, and it didn't sound like the orchestral performance was going to end any time soon, so she spent a good few hours meandering through the academy—jotting down notes on the state of the buildings, taking testimonies from even more children, and conversing with the brilliant men and women coordinating the repair efforts—before heading for the southeastern building.

The orchestra hall loomed ahead at the end of the corridor, and she was met with a wall of bodies. Hundreds of finely-threaded people pressed together, all jostling to get inside, necks craned, ears hungry for the sound.

Sora clicked her tongue.

She's the most popular by far, huh?

But then, she supposed, it only made sense. Julius Tadius was a recluse who hid in his greenhouse, refusing to meet anyone though droves of academics swarmed outside in his botanical garden. Marcus Evander was technically out in the open, but no soldier, warrior, or bug-slayer felt comfortable nearing him and his children. That meant, if one were to want to make contact with a teacher, they'd most likely settle for this one. And this one had a reputation.

Most new arrivals would've turned back at the sight of the crowd, but Sora wasn't most people. Where others pushed and shoved, she slipped. Thin, bony, and light-footed as a mantis, she wove her way through the gaps like she belonged there.

Guess it pays off being a stickwoman.

Inside the orchestral hall, the air was thick with the weight of held breath. There were a hundred chairs arranged in lecture hall style facing the grand stage, but nobody was sitting. Not a single soul. A thousand men and women all stood, locked in place, their eyes fixed on the stage as if they were afraid to blink.

Sora followed their gaze, because there—at the center of it all—was the conductor herself.

She stood with her back straight, shoulders poised with the kind of effortless grace that only came from years of practice. One arm—human, steady—moved with precision, guiding an invisible thread through the air. The other, a smooth and polished prosthetic, gleamed under the stage lights, mimicking the same delicate motions. But that wasn't all. In her human hand, she held a conductor's wand, and as it swayed, the orchestra swayed with it.

Not the musicians, no. For the thirty chairs set on the stage, there wasn't a single child in any of them. The instruments played themselves.

Sora softened her eyes and listened deeply.

The violins shuddered and sang under invisible hands. The cellos groaned with the weight of their own melody. The horns and woodwinds rose like tides, swelling, crashing, then retreating into silence. It was a ghostly kind of beauty, and she had to admire the control. Conducting a flesh-and-blood orchestra was one thing. Conducting it with biomagic itself? Now that was something Sora had never seen before. This sight alone would make for a good enough article were she merely here to report on something interesting.

But she let herself listen. Let the music fill the spaces between her ribs. Let it curl against her spine. This was Amadeus Academy's anthem—the same song, if rumors were to be believed, that'd echoed over the mountains during the Witch-Killing itself.

Then, as swiftly as it'd begun, it ended.

The last note hung in the air, trembling, before vanishing into the stunned silence left behind. For a moment, no one moved.

Then, as if shaking free from a spell, the audience erupted into applause. The conductor in the sapphire-blue cloak turned, offered a bow, and then—with the same practiced elegance—began the quiet task of putting everything away.

No assistants. No students. Just her.

And, of course, the journalists.

They swarmed around and below the stage almost immediately, pressing in like hungry hounds, but the conductor barely had to lift a finger. One soft "silence", accompanied by a flick of her wand, and the air around her hummed with unsaid warning. The chatter died instantly. The crowd backed away. And then, just like that, the audience emptied the hall and rushed out through the exit, far too afraid of the Magicicada Mage to press their luck again.

Sora alone lingered.

She stepped forward, slow and deliberate, watching as the conductor stacked sheet music and dismissed floating instruments with absent gestures. There was something fascinating about the way the conductor moved—so, so ethereal. So pretty. So graceful.

The conductor barely acknowledged her as she stepped up onto the side of the stage.

"... You're quite curious," the conductor said, not looking up, "staying behind when everyone else scurries away."

Sora tilted her head. "You must be new to me."

That earned a brief glance, but nothing more.

The conductor returned to her work, though the air between them had shifted. There was no dismissal now—only curiosity. "This must be your first time at one of my performances," she mused. "So tell me, are you another journalist here to court me like the rest?"

Sora let the question hang for a moment before stepping closer, gesturing toward one of the floating violins. "May I?"

The conductor paused. Then, with a small wave of her wand, she sent the bow and the instrument toward Sora.

"Please."

Sora caught the instrument out of the air easily. It was well-maintained, polished, and perfectly tuned. She tested the strings, adjusted her grip, and once she took her seat on an empty chair in the middle of the orchestra, she began to play Amadeus Academy's anthem on a one-string scale.

The melody threaded through the quiet hall like a second echo of the performance that'd just ended.

The conductor, for once, did not move.

She watched.

And just as Sora was about to finish, she stepped back, settling down and sitting on the conductor's podium with an unreadable expression.

… Sora finished, lowered the violin, and placed it neatly on the stage before her.

The silence stretched for another moment before the conductor clapped softly.

"Not bad," she said. "You've had formal training."

Sora leaned back in her chair, smiling graciously. "My household made me play when I was a child. Said it'd help me get closer to people. Help me 'anchor' in them."

"Oh, I've heard that before."

"Not from me, you haven't." Sora dipped her head slightly, pulling her notebook out of her cloak. "I am Sora, writer for the Spinneret Society. You must be Cecilia Sarius, Amadeus Academy's one and only music teacher."

"I am Cecilia Sarius, yes."

"And one of the four teachers who took part in the Witch-Killing," Sora added.

"Is that what they're calling it now?" A slow shake of her head. "It's not half as cool as it sounds."

"But it is good for business?"

Cecilia chuckled, gesturing back at the empty hall. "Unfortunately, we need the money. The castle isn't going to rebuild itself, and performances like mine bring in sponsors. Wealthy ones. The battle against Nona put us on the map. Men from over the mountains heard our roaring anthem as Nona burned to ashes, and now they want to see the academy for themselves."

"You need sponsors?"

Her fingers tapped idly against the podium. "Julius and Marcus aren't bringing in much with their work, but I'm a music teacher, so I perform. Every day. And so far, I'd say I'm doing well enough for all of us." A wry smile tugged at her lips. "Feels like I'm the only breadwinner of this place, though. Though I'm sure Julius with his medicine and Marcus with his fitness programs will bring in sponsors eventually."

Sora grinned. So that was why the music teacher was hosting solo orchestral performances.

"Embellishing the Witch-Killing must also be doing you teachers a favour, then?" Sora said. "After all, a remarkable story is less 'history' than it is a 'legend', and legends get people in seats—"

"Oh, but we didn't embellish anything when it came to the Witch-Killing," Cecilia murmured. "We did kill the Magicicada Witch three days after we got our Magicicada Classes. That much—and everything else you have heard about us—is completely true."

Sora tilted her head, tapping her fingers against her knee as she leaned forward. "Even the story about you being a direct descendant of the Magicicada Mages?"

Cecilia was silent for a moment. The gaslight overhead burned harsh against her pale skin.

"... Yes. That's true as well," she said slowly. "I'm the daughter of the former Headmistress of this academy."

Nice. Sora's grin widened as she flipped open her notebook with a snap, the corner of her nail dragging against the parchment. "What's that all about, then?" she asked, scrawling rapidly. "What's your story?"

Cecilia huffed a small laugh, shaking her head. "It's not that complicated," she said. "I'm simply the daughter of the former Headmistress. I liked playing instruments as a child—the same way Julius liked his drugs and Marcus liked his exercising—so I became a music teacher once I came of age."

Sora didn't look up from her page as she kept scribbling. "But you don't play like you like playing instruments," she said idly.

The grand conductor of Amadeus Academy blinked at her.

"Excuse me?"

Sora tapped her pen against her chin, glancing up, scrutinising. "The way you played for the crowd just now. It sounded half-hearted," she said plainly. "Oh, sure, it was good enough to trick the sponsors. But to me?" She gestured vaguely to the empty seats behind Cecilia. "It was missing something."

"..."

For another second, Cecilia simply stared at her.

Then, with a breath, she stood, stepping onto the conductor's stand once more.

Her back straightened, her shoulders squared, and her single human hand gripped her wand like it was the hilt of a blade.

"Da Capo," she called, and her voice rang through the hall, strong and unshaken. "Anthem of the Five-Pointed Star."

And the instruments came to life, but this time, they didn't merely play. They roared. The violins wept. The cellos groaned like old trees bending in the wind. The horns thundered, and the flutes screamed like ghosts through the halls. Cecilia herself conducted like she was summoning a storm in her hands, and thank the Great Makers Sora managed to cover her ears in time. Seated amongst the floating instruments as she was, her eardrums would've immediately shattered at the first note.

But she listened, the ghost of a pained smirk curling her lips.

The anthem Cecilia had played before was nothing compared to this.

So as the final note rang out and the hall fell into breathless silence once again, Cecilia stood there, panting, sweat glistening at her brow. She glared down at Sora with the gas spotlights burning against her back, casting a long shadow over the stage.

"... Was that good enough for you, Spinneret?"

Sora grinned, wincing slightly as she peeled her hands from her ears. "That was what was missing, yes. There wasn't any—"

"Fire."

Cecilia let out a breath—something close to a laugh. She stepped down from the podium, wiping the back of her hand against her forehead as she sat heavily on a chair next to Sora.

"That's right," she murmured. "I was always missing 'fire'." She let her head tip back, eyes flicking toward the rafters above. "And it wasn't until the Witch-Killing—until I made Nona hear the anthem I wrote eight years ago—that I realised I'd never really been playing my music with all my heart, so… I'm trying to change."

Sora watched her. The way her fingers still trembled slightly from exertion, the way her breath still came sharp and uneven.

"For whose sake?" Sora asked.

Cecilia gave a small, weary smile. "For everyone's sake," she said. "For my mother's sake. For the old mages' sake. For the children's sake. For the faculty's sake." Her hands curled into fists on her lap. "I'll play for the academy until the day I die. That's what I want to do. I'll accept sponsors, but I won't leave this place to join some distant band. This is my home, and I'll fight for it in the only way I know how."

Then she let out a breath, giving Sora a wry look.

"You wanted a story, didn't you?" She spread her arms, gesturing to the empty hall, the stage, the floating instruments now slowly drifting back to the floor. "This is mine, Spinneret, from 'Da Capo' to 'Coda'. I hope you've enjoyed my performance."

A 'performance'. Sora let the words settle, turning them over in her mind like smooth stones in her palm.

"Indeed," she murmured. "That was a good performance."

She shut her notebook with a flick of her wrist, then stood, stretching out the stiffness in her legs. "The other two teachers I interviewed—Mister Tadius and Mister Evander—they also gave me good and satisfying stories that'll definitely make it into my article." She dusted off the back of her cloak, rolling her shoulders. "And with yours, that makes three good headliners. Enough to get my bosses off my back for a month, at least."

Cecilia raised a brow, watching her rise. "And you're not going to interview the last teacher?"

Sora was already heading towards the stairs by the side of the stage when she stilled for a moment.

"... You're both 'Fabres', aren't you?" Cecilia continued, tilting her head. "I'm quite certain he doesn't know there are other Fabres still alive out there. I'm also quite certain he thinks all Fabres are traitors of humanity. If he sees you, maybe he'll—"

"I'm sure he doesn't remember an insignificant branch family member like me," Sora said bluntly. "I am merely 'Sora', and the twenty-five Hundred Tongues are born to serve the twenty-sixth Thousand Tongue. 'Zora' has no reason to know about servants who betrayed the household."

Cecilia scoffed. "You don't know him, then. He remembers the names of every last man he meets precisely because he is the Thousand Tongue. If he wasn't capable of at least that much, he wouldn't be the one and only language teacher in Amadeus Academy." She propped her chin on her hand, smirking slightly. "Of the four of us, he's the only one who's been turning away every outsider trying to talk to him, but I bet he'd be fine speaking with a cousin."

Sora was quiet for a long moment.

Then she shook her head, still smiling.

"No," she hummed. "He's the only person I won't interview."

"And why's that?"

"Because the three of you—the emerald-cloak, the ruby-cloak, and the sapphire-cloak—all have stories that have already reached a satisfying conclusion." She counted them off on her fingers. "Mister Tadius wants to stay here to continue his research on halting Carapathy, Mister Evander wants to train his students and protect them, and you want to be a proper music teacher. All of you will stay here in Amadeus Academy, but…" Her smile thinned slightly. "The Thousand Tongue's story? That hasn't ended yet. It has only just begun."

Cecilia leaned back in her chair, the metal legs creaking. "That's right," she murmured. "Of the four of us, he's the only one who can't move on just yet."

"So I'll follow his story from here on out," Sora finished. "And when it finally comes to an end—no matter how many years it would take—that is when I will interview him and get my article of the century."

With that, she turned back to Cecilia, grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm sure the reason why he's refusing interviews is because he knows his story hasn't ended yet. After all, there is a saying in our Fabre Household: 'From nothing comes nothing, but—'"

"'From nothing, comes fire'," Cecilia cut in smoothly, finishing the phrase. "You want to see his fire first, don't you?"

Sora was silent for another beat.

Then, she dipped her head politely again.

"Thank you for your time, Miss Sarius," she said. "I'm sure we'll meet again"

Cecilia mirrored it with a curt nod. "Likewise."

Sora turned and walked out of the orchestra hall, her shoes tapping lightly against the worn stone.

A hell of a Witch-Killing happened here, hm?

As she stepped out into the corridor, she glanced out through the broken windows at the sky beyond.

There was going to be more Witch-Killings out there, and she wondered, for a very brief moment, how many years she'd spend following them.

Sora couldn't even begin to guess, so she supposed she'd wait around for the Thousand Tongue to make his next move.

Dawn.

Eight in the morning.

It was exactly one month after the death of the Magicicada Witch that the 'Sterngott Funeral' was held in the academy's southwestern courtyard. Banners of the Five-Pointed Star hung from every pillar, every archway, flags flying strong and sharp atop every repaired building. Attendance was voluntary for the survivors of the infestation, but not a single child wasn't dressed for the occasion so early in the morning, their flowery black and gold academy uniforms buttoned up tight, their capelets swaying in the wind as they stood in neat little rows according to class, height, and age. Perfectly ordered, if not a little sombre.

No outsiders were allowed to attend the funeral. Reconstruction work continued everywhere else, but not the southwestern courtyard. The morning was theirs, and Julius hadn't spent all week reseeding lilies and carnations across the earth in preparation of the funeral for nothing.

The wind carried sweetly sick scents off the flowers as Zora led the prayer, standing at the very front of the children and before the three open caskets.

One was for the mages, one was for the faculty, and one was for the children. Most of the bodies couldn't be salvaged, restored, or recovered. They were too badly damaged, especially the mages who all had their necks, wands, and magicicada systems crushed to bits. The best Cecilia could do was go around the academy picking up trinkets, tokens, and mementos in place of every body they couldn't bury, and now all of those little items were in the caskets, ready to be lowered into the ground.

And Marcus had dug rather large holes for the caskets in the courtyard.

"... We are the architects of our fortune," Zora whispered, eyes closed, head lowered, hands clapped together. "Good souls. Brave souls. Amadeus Academy will remember you."

"Amadeus Academy will remember you," the children repeated behind him.

That was the cue for Cecilia, Marcus, and Julius to each close a casket and nudge it into its hole. Zora's focus lingered on the children's casket for a moment longer—on the little open but unfinished bag of bloodberry candies sitting at the very top of the item pile—but he allowed himself nothing more than a small, wistful smile as Cecilia cast "to peace with you" on the surrounding dirt, laying the dead to rest once and for all.

Then all was silent.

The children behind him couldn't help but let out involuntary breaths of relief. Some sobbed, some cried here and there, but they hugged each other, comforted each other, and smiled at each other—they were going to be alright. There were so, so many people here from the outside world, and they were under watch from nearly every major faction and military on the continent. Even an Insect God would think twice before assaulting Amadeus Academy as it currently was.

The living were going to be just alright.

"... Are you sure you want to go, Zora?"

Cecilia, Marcus, and Julius stood by his side as they watched the children work through the funeral. Julius was looking sickly thin as ever, but he was always as healthy as he could be. Marcus had lost several pounds from how hard he'd been working to rebuild the academy the past month, but there was no doubt he'd regain his monstrous muscles in another month or two. Cecilia had lost her right arm—Julius couldn't imagine himself reattaching a disfigured arm after such a violent dismemberment—but she was making do with an advanced steel prosthetic powered by bioarcanic essence; a gift from one of the De Balla Engineers. It'd still be a long way off before she could conduct any orchestras with it, but she'd get there. And she'd be stronger because of it.

So Zora opened his eyes, and there was little difference whether he did so or not.

He was still blind.

Julius couldn't heal him, and there was nothing in the world that could return his vision.

But… it really wasn't as terrible as it seemed.

Even if he couldn't physically see anymore, the status interfaces he'd been waving away had been nothing more than projections. He could still 'see' his attributes clear as day in his head.

[// STATUS]

[Name: Zora Fabre]

[Grade: S-Rank Giant-Class]

[Specialized Class: Magicicada]

[Passive Mutation: Resilin Cords]

[Essence Art: God Tongue]

[Aura: 955 BeS]

[Points: 18 vBe]

[Strength: 4, Speed: 4, Toughness: 3, Dexterity: 4, Perception: 6]

[// MUTATION TREE]

[T1 Mutation | Pulsatile Lungs Lvl. 3]

[T2 Mutations | Sonorous Chitin Lvl. 5 | Basic Spiracles Lvl. 3]

[T3 Mutations | Basic Digestion | Basic Wings Lvl. 2 | Basic Setae] 150P

Ninety percent of Nona's carcass had been charred to the point it wasn't humanly edible, but still, they'd recovered as much meat as they could and distributed the points equally amongst the four of them. Zora had gotten about two hundred points, and he put almost all of them into perception.

Without his eyes, he just needed his hearing to be that good.

Thankfully, between the points he'd put into perception and literally being unable to see anything apart from extremely powerful sources of light—like staring directly up at the fuzzy glowing ball that was the sun—he'd been diligently honing his depth of perception via hearing and hearing alone. He could vaguely tell fourteen unwanted outsiders were lurking around the edges of the courtyard, stealing peeks at the funeral. He could vaguely tell how nervous three of them were with their frantically beating hearts. Every slight movement in the world created sound, so if he just put his head forward and focused really, really hard, it was almost like he could see again.

Sure, he wouldn't be able to read or see colours or do anything of the sort, but for the ability to observe more than he ever could, it wasn't such a damning tradeoff.

Especially considering what he was planning on doing.

"... You've heard me say this before," he said, smiling softly as he glanced at the other teachers, hands clasped behind his back. "Bugs leave when they are satisfied with their meal, but the hunger of 'fire' knows no bounds. This isn't over yet. If they are truly sisters of the same blood and flesh, then they won't take the death of their youngest in stride. Mark my words, as long as Decima and Morta still walk on two feet, they will come for us again. It's not like you don't know what to do when bullies try to come for round two, right?"

Marcus smirked. "Get them drunk and lead them to a back alley."

Julius chuckled nervously. "T-Then jump them, break their legs, and rob their purses."

"Which is why we have to go on the offensive," Zora said. "We let them come after Amadeus Academy, the children will be dragged into a battle again. That cannot be allowed to happen. I must fight them in their territory."

He high-fived the two of them, but Cecilia wasn't so easily convinced. She crossed her arms and he could physically hear her brows creasing as she frowned at him, though… it wasn't the 'angry' sort of scowl he wouldn't have been able to deal with.

It was 'worry'.

'Fear'.

But he'd told her before, and she knew just as well—behaviour preceded nature, and those who could act brave could become brave.

There was something he needed to do, and fear couldn't be something that fettered him. It had to be 'fire', and it had to be now.

Cecilia knew that.

Apart from the four of them—the very last Magicicada Mages in the world—he couldn't imagine anyone else with the ability to defeat the Magicicada Witches.

So, while Cecilia teared up and sniffled and tried to wipe her nose, Marcus grabbed his neck and put him in a headlock, scrubbing his hair harshly.

"We'll hold down the fort as the new Headmasters of the academy," Marcus said, grinning from ear to ear. "Hiring new faculty will be tough after what just happened, but… it'll be easy as well, I think. We're the teachers who defeated an Insect God. If that isn't one hell of a recruiting tagline for perspective guards and faculty, I don't know what—"

"—you mean 'prospective', you oaf—"

Julius coughed into his fist as Marcus punched Zora on the head. "A-And I'll… continue researching my venoms and medicines here. We still don't really know what… a 'silkmoth' really is, so if any orphan comes here with silkmoth mutations, I'll be able to halt their mutations immediately." Then he looked Zora in the eye, his face tight and determined like never before. "No more children like Emilia. The next time a half-silkmoth shows up… I'll put a stop to their mutations. I promise."

Zora didn't want to force Julius to do the impossible if it wasn't possible—given there were no half-silkmoths around for them to perform research on—but it was better to just dip his head and be grateful. After all, if there was anyone who could do the impossible, it'd be the scrawny man standing several metres off to the side, doing absolutely nothing to help him break out of Marcus' grip.

"Help me out, man."

"I-I can't."

"He's gonna kill me."

"He's gonna kill me—"

"Zora."

Cecilia's voice cut loud and sharp over their squabbling, and Marcus released him in an instant, all three of them standing at attention. Zora was no exception. He stiffened as she walked right in front of him, looking up at him, and… held out something at his face.

Not just a spiral-patterned wand.

It was a spiral-patterned staff, and it was exactly as long as he was tall.

"Julius took the recoverable chitin plates from Nona's body and added it onto the wand to turn it into a staff. You should have an easier time marching now, so... don't break it, okay?" she said, voice shaky, nose still runny. "This… is mom's final gift to me. To all of us. If you break it… or if you lose it or something, I don't know, I'll—"

He clasped her hand, took the staff from her, and then pointed it straight up into the morning sky.

He didn't have to cast a spell. He didn't have to move an inch. The staff made out of the flesh of an Insect God trembled, and then he twirled it slowly around in a circle, letting it point in every conceivable direction before the staff suddenly stopped trembling.

The staff realised its mistake half a second later as he tilted his head.

In its attempt to hide where the second of the Magicicada Witches was, it revealed her exact location to him.

South.

"... I will be back to win my most popular teacher of the year award, you know?" he said, patting Cecilia's shoulders as he walked past her, his staff making soft thuds in the earth below. "If you think this is the last you'll see of me, then think again, and think again. It'll be a long march down to the Attini Empire, but I'll be thinking of you guys the entire way there, so don't mess up the academy while I'm gone. I do want to return and teach once this is all over. Our story as the 'teachers who took an Insect God' does not end here."

The rest of the teachers followed after him as he marched through the centre of the crowd.

"And how long will that be?" Cecilia shouted.

"You're gonna make us wait for five years or longer, right?" Marcus asked.

"W-Who's gonna defend me from Marcus while you're gone?" Julius stammered.

In response, Zora chuckled as the children clung to his amber cloak, and he patted their heads one by one on his way to the open southwestern gate. "You're all the new Headmasters of Amadeus Academy, are you not? Figure it out yourself. It'll do no good for the heads of an academic institution to be associated with a violent, wandering bug-slayer, so I'll appreciate it if you keep letters to a minimum… though I've no idea if I'll be able to send letters back while I'm on my long march. Just send them to my general vicinity, and hopefully I'll come across them every once in a while."

"I'll send letters, Mister Fabre!" Titus said, his tiny fists clenched and shaking with determination as he looked up at Zora. "I'll… I'll protect the academy while you're gone! I swear! I'll… I'll even go to all of Mister Evander's fitness classes! I'll be so strong you won't even recognise me when you come back!"

Zora curled his lips in a sly, amused smile. "Well, you don't have to go that far, but please. Watch over the academy for me until I get back. This isn't the last time we'll meet."

Not in order, the rest of the class monitors piped up as well, each proclaiming their plans and goals for the rest of the year. Some were optimistic. Most were unrealistic. But every declaration, promise, and word was shouted with the betterment of Amadeus Academy in mind, so he couldn't very well do anything but laugh as they all accompanied him to the southwestern gate—and he alone stepped past the walls of the academy, waved off by the people he held dearest to his heart.

There were still plenty of things he wanted to say to his friends, but… if he looked back now, he wasn't sure he could keep moving forward.

He'd be back one day.

So as he marched down the ridge to the southern end of the Wolkenkam Mountain Range, he lifted his staff and pointed it skywards once again, whispering "fireworks".

And though he couldn't see them exploding overhead with his very own eyes, he could tell, just by the sounds of the children cheering and his friends shouting at him to come home safe, that they were probably the brightest, most resplendent magic anyone had ever cast.

They were fireworks to herald the death of an Innsect God, the rebirth of Amadeus Academy, and the beginning of his long march to hunt down the other two Magicicada Witches.

… Do you see them now?

How's that for 'fire', Emilia?

Volume One, End