Thousand Tongue Mage

The window's warmth told Zora it was afternoon. A dry, sun-cooked hush sat in the air even inside the dorm room, and he listened outside the window he was leaning against. A bunch of fifth-years were training with weapons against each other. Dual-spear style. He didn't like the constant, metallic clangs.

Inside the room, though, finer sounds had control.

Click. Click. Whir.

Beside him, Eria and Enki turned components over in their gloved hands with the care of a doctor. They were working on some chitin plating by the workbench that was Eria's study bench. He could hear glyphs being inscribed on the shell surface, but they were uneven glyphs. Eria was doing her best to teach Enki how to make his own Swarmsteel, and it just so happened that a steady hand for carving was, surprisingly, not one of Enki's strong suits.

And here I thought he'd have a steadier drawing hand with how he shoots that rifle of his.

While he listened to Eria's coaching, he took a brief count of all the Swarmsteel in her workbench again. It'd been a full month since he discovered her strange hobby, and since then, both him and Enki—the entire Salaqa faction, actually, with Ifas and Kita as well—had won the next two preliminary rounds in the tournament. The four of the Five Princesses of the academy may be strong, but they were only strong in the academy. For people like him, Enki, and Kita, who'd fought plenty of real battles against the Swarm already, the princesses weren't much of a threat after all.

And the only reason why he and Enki avoided any upsets was because of Eria's Swarmsteel.

Zora wasn't wearing his now, but Enki had taken a liking to his gear. There were compression coils under the boy's sleeves, chitin plates under his uniform, and other tiny trinkets and equipment layered under his clothes—tucked so perfectly beneath the fabric—that nobody could really question how he could tank a full bullet to the ribs and not flinch. The equipment was good justification for his unnatural durability, and a justification for durability was the only thing he needed to go full force on all his opponents.

As for Zora…

He glanced to the side, noting the briefcase sitting on his study desk across the room.

That thing was made of antlion mandibles. Hinge-jawed. Eria had crafted it to snap open violently, and within it, countless explosives, fog-bloomers, adhesive mines, and hatching traps lined the compartments. Most of them were loud and flashy, which was exactly what he needed to cast his spells like they were mere sleight of hands. He'd open the briefcase at the start of the fight, immediately cast 'smokescreen', and then chuck a dozen 'explosive flames' at his opponents. Whenever the arbiters questioned what he did afterwards, he'd simply show them the case of explosives and wave the strange looks away.

Eria's really got a lot of Swarmsteel she wants us to test out, though.

Enki did most of the prototyping, of course. He had the luxury of overwhelming physical strength and skill that Zora didn't have, which gave him more room to see which of her Swarmsteel worked and didn't work. But crafting and tinkering and working on those same Swarmsteel after midnight, long after classes and only once Kita had gone to bed, had become… unsustainable. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't easy to do extensive work on Swarmsteel if she had to hide it from her own roommate.

So one evening—a week after the second preliminaries—Zora had told her to just tell Kita.

She'd nearly dropped her carving scalpel in panic.

But the next afternoon, when Kita walked into the dorm and saw the three of them crowded around the workbench—Enki with his arms folded, Eria hunched over her vices, and him standing nearby listening to the rattle of wing-bone fittings—the heiress didn't scold her. Didn't even flinch. She merely stepped closer, took one long look at the mess of carapaces and smoke glyphs, and patted Eria's head with a quiet 'nice glyphs'.

That was all.

Zora sighed again just thinking about that day. Obviously, it was absurd to think Kita hadn't noticed Eria's hobby of making Swarmsteel in the middle of the night after years of bunking together, but it was also just as absurd of Eria to fear Kita's judgement in the first place.

She should've known that the heiress, at the very least, wasn't a Noble-Blood of that kind.

Since then, Eria could work on her Swarmsteel in broad daylight, and Enki and Kita would often linger around to help. Meanwhile, Zora kept his attention elsewhere.

Specifically, on her.

He'd sent many letters to many people over the past month: first to the Salaqa Lord, and then to the other Regional Lords who owed him a favor in the northeast. He cross-checked names, bloodlines, and the regional seal she wore on the sleeve of her uniform—and none of it existed.

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That was no 'Eria Salaqa'.

In fact, the branch household she claimed she was from didn't even exist either. Whoever she was, she was wearing the name like a borrowed coat—too large in the shoulders and too loose at the wrists—but whenever he asked her discreetly who was giving her allowance, she'd answer without pause that it was her Salaqa relatives.

Honestly, he believed her. He didn't think she was lying. She truly believed she was being funded by her family, which meant someone had placed her here, in the heart of the Royal Ayapacha Military Academy, and gave her a Noble-Blood's mask to wear.

In any case, he hadn't let her out of his senses for the past month. Not once. Though he'd found no evidence of it, he couldn't help but wonder if her lack of a background had anything to do with Vantari.

Before he could mull more about it, three gentle knocks came from the door, and Kita poked her head in from outside.

"Time for dinner," she called out. "Cafeteria's quiet now."

Behind her was Ifas, masked as always, so Eria and Enki quickly packed up their things and closed the workbench. She was still keeping her hobby a secret from everyone outside this room, so it'd be best if nobody came in while they were out and saw her stash of Swarmsteel.

Kita strode across the room without hesitation to help them pack up.

"And what are you two making now?" she asked Eria, warm and amused.

"Ah. Uhm, it's a… it's an upgrade to the firefly gauntlets," Eria said. "The explosive power isn't strong enough, so we're trying to figure out how to double the number of glyphs without making them take up more space."

"You plan to test it on Eryn again, I assume?"

"I… I mean, if he doesn't mind…"

While the two girls chatted away, Enki rose from his chair and stepped back to Zora's side.

Zora angled his head slightly. "Hey."

"Hello."

"Have you noticed anything… strange about her?"

Enki was quiet for a moment before replying:

"She does not breathe a lot."

Zora frowned faintly. From a half-immortal, that meant more than it sounded. If even the Worm Mage found it strange, it was worth remembering.

Once Eria pushed back her stool and Kita finished helping her close the workbench, the five of them stepped out into the hallway together. Kita led the way to the carriage parked outside, Enki and Zora flanked her, while Ifas took the rear with Eria.

As they walked, Kita spoke again, half-idle, half-pointed.

"You know," she said, glancing over at Enki, "I think Eryn's been enjoying the academy a little more lately. He's actually attending his classes and doing his readings now."

Zora smiled faintly, but Enki had no reaction.

"You even sparred in the group drills the other day," she added. "Come now. Admit it. You've taken a little bit to the student life, haven't you?"

Enki didn't answer right away, and Zora had come to recognise that silence this past month. The Worm Mage had been doing that more lately. It was like obedience had slowly settled into him like dust after rain. There was no more muttering under his breath about lectures or uniforms or drills, and no more late arrivals to class or unexplained absences.

Zora suspected it wasn't affection for academy life. Rather…

"... The quiet does not fit me," Enki said sternly. "Before I was a student, I was a soldier. There is no quiet like this anywhere else in the empire. The lowborn claw for breath in the outer regions, and the Swarm eats up fields and farms by the hour. Only the privileged can enjoy a peace like this, and—"

"So it's good, then," she interrupted cheerily, "that you've tasted a little bit of peace."

Enki's head tilted ever so slightly, and Zora, too, listened keenly as Kita continued.

"The best empire is the empire that can afford to have all of its children living a war-free life,"she said. "The two of you have come here from the outer region battlefields, scarred in face, hand, and heart. That's why the two of you don't like this academy. You find the peace we enjoy here detestable, even if you don't say it aloud… and I'd agree with you there. It must be difficult to enjoy this peace when you know the sort of battles the common folk fight out there."

Her heels clicked lightly against the corridor tile. Calm. Confident.

"But now that you have seen what peace looks like, you'll return to your household one day—after graduation—and you'll know the kind of empire you are fighting for," she finished. "In that sense, I'm glad the two of you are here."

Both of them fell into step beside her, silent for a stretch.

Then Zora tilted his head slightly, amusement threading into his voice.

"And what kind of empire would that be, exactly?"

He heard the rustle of Kita's collar as she glanced back. Enki turned with her. Zora followed their cue, angling his head as though to look, though it was sound he was seeing.

At the rear of the group, Eria was giggling at something Ifas had said. The sound rang high and unpolished. Unpretentious joy. Ifas made some exaggerated gesture, and Eria let out another snort, half-buried under her sleeve. She was always trying not to laugh too loud recently. Always failing.

"... An empire where all children can live an academy life," Kita said, turning her gaze forward again to stare at Zora. "Isn't that what the two of you are fighting for?"

…

Zora reached up and adjusted the edge of his mask calmly.

He knew she knew, but it was still important they wore their masks.

"I see the heiress knows how to dream big," he said, with the smallest smile. "That is the first step in becoming the matriarch of a great household, I suppose."

She snorted softly in return. "And step two would be defeating 'Alvay Salaqa' in the semifinals tomorrow," she said, turning her chin up. "Then I must defeat 'Eryn Salaqa' in the finals after that."

Zora gave a slow, thoughtful hum, folding his hands behind his back as they walked on.

"We'll see about that, heiress."