By the time Zora and Cecilia gobbled up the second butterfly leg, the clock struck nine with the ring of a bell, and the two of them made their way over to the western foyer with Emilia in tow.

  Open status interface, he thought. How many points do I have?

  A small interfacepopped up next to his head, and judging by the way Cecilia was also looking off to the side, she was also looking at her screen.

  [Points: 17]

  “I’ve got seventeen points now,” Zora said. “You?”

  “Sixteen. Wait a minute. You ate a bit more than me, didn’t you?”

  “Guilty as charged. We’ll put… eight points in speed and toughness so they’re both level three?”

  Cecilia nodded. Without another word, they both confirmed their options, and Zora barely paid the appearing status interface any attention.

  [Speed: 2 → 3]

  [Toughness: 2 → 3]

  [Aura: 505 → 521]

  [Points: 17 → 1]

  It wasn’t that Zora didn’t think strength, dexterity, and perception weren’t important, but if he had to choose between fighting or running away, he’d choose being able to run away quicker—and there was no doubt they’d be doing a lot of running where they were headed, and of the three of them, he was probably the least athletic. He needed the additional level in speed, and the additional toughness would just be useful all around.

  Emilia aside, it’d also simply be a laughing shame if he were to fall behind even Cecilia, who’d strapped a violin, a mandolin, and a flute onto her back alongside a satchel full of hand-sewn dolls. The instruments had to be somewhat heavy, so he didn't want to show his slow side to anyone.

  But those dolls…

  What’s she bringing them along for?

  “... I know you’re smart and strong, but if you get too tired, ask someone to switch out for you, okay?” Cecilia said, making Titus nod and thump his chest with a confident fist. Zora still didn’t like the idea of making students of his stay up all night just to watch the door, but here he was fixing Emilia’s clothes, rolling up sleeves and folding up her skirt so she’d have an easier time running just in case; he was in no position to lecture Cecilia’s star student at this time of night.

  So, as Cecilia made Titus repeat her instructions once over, Zora pulled the lever by the side of the gate to make it creak open slowly. His wand was already out, his throat already rehydrated—his stamina hadn't replenished completely after his bout with the giant butterfly, but he was good enough to start casting spells again. If there were any giant bugs right outside the gate, he’d ‘strike’ them with the force of two average humans, and that had to count for something.

  Thankfully, the gate creaked open to reveal an empty, unlit western cafeteria hall. It was identical to the southwestern cafeteria, but the floor was still intact and the furnishing had yet to be knocked over. No giant bugs had trespassed this land; they were free to wander out as they pleased.

  “Tell anyone knocking on the gate to identify themselves, okay?” Cecilia said as a final word, looking back at Titus as she stepped out of the foyer with him and Emilia. “Remember: if they can’t tell you three things only humans would know—”

  “Don’t let them in!” Titus nodded firmly, waving all three of them off with one hand on the lever. “Good luck, Miss Sarius, Mister Fabre! I promise I won’t be asleep by the time you come back!”

  Zora and Cecilia waved back as the gate swung shut, the automatic bolts and latches sliding in place with loud clicks. Since he arrived at the academy a decade ago, he’d never actually seen the dorm activate ‘shelter mode’ before—that was, he’d never actually seen any of the gates closed before. Anyone could always wander in and out of the dorm at any time of the day, no questions asked.

  “... Were you the one who activated shelter mode, Miss Sarius?” he asked, still staring at the heavy-duty gate behind him.

  “I was the first and only teacher to evacuate into the dorm, and you know the protocol: the first faculty member has to immediately activate shelter mode in the event of a Swarm infestation,” she mumbled back. “Once shelter mode is activated, the gates can only be manually opened on the inside. Now, the faculty member is supposed to be the one standing guard by the foyers to let in any stragglers, so—”

  “If Titus falls asleep and he doesn’t open the gate while we’re getting hounded, we’ll be stuck out here,” he finished, sighing quietly. “Not to worry, though. Titus is a good kid. We can count on him to open the gate the moment we knock.” Then he looked down at Emilia and patted her head, smiling softly. “That goes for you, too. If we tell you to run back, run back and knock on the gate. Yell out at Titus. He’ll be sure to open the gate for you.”

  Emilia stared blankly up at him—as though trying to read his face to probe for an answer he wanted to hear, though she was blind—so he flicked her forehead and scowled, shaking his head slowly. Children shouldn’t have to try to guess what adults were thinking just to give the ‘perfect’ response.

  “Of all your classmates in 2-A, Titus is the one who understands you the best,” he said softly, kneeling to face her eye-to-eye. “You don’t have to trust him for now, so trust me when I say I trust him. He will open the gate for you if you yell at him. Promise you won’t hesitate to call out for his help?”

  “... Okay,” she whispered, her extra arms caressing her forehead where he’d flicked her. “I’ll… um, what’s his name… again?”

  He chuckled, standing up and offering to hold her hand.

  “Titus,” he said. “People say a butterfly knows every wing in its garden. Do you know what this expression means?”

  Emilia gave him several wrong answers as they started walking, passed through the cafeteria, and crossed the narrow link bridge connecting the dorm to the western academy buildings.

  Stepping into the entrance hall of the western visual and music arts building, he immediately heard tons of giant bugs crawling on the roof, and dozens more skittering around the three floors. He didn’t have to be right in front of them to see their shadows shifting in the moonlight. They were all kinds of oversized beetles, ants, spiders, and he felt he even spotted a centipede or two wriggling downstairs through a small crack in the floor.

  If not for Cecilia casting “silence”—a sound wave bubble that shimmered around them, muting their footsteps—the squeak of their shoes would’ve already given them away to the horde of giant bugs patrolling the building.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “You can imagine yourself muting all sounds?” he thought, raising a brow as he gave Cecilia a curious look.

  “I can imagine silencing my kids during music lessons, making the classroom so quiet you can even hear the sound of an ant’s heartbeat,” her squint seemed to say, raising a brow back at him.

  This is a spell only a music teacher can imagine manifesting into physical reality, huh?

  The three of them lowered themselves, stuck to the walls, and started sneaking slowly through the narrow corridors. Whenever a giant bug neared, they’d duck into a classroom and wait until it passed them by. Whenever the “silence” bubble was about to fade, Cecilia would recast it quietly, and then they’d continue sneaking through the halls.

  Their destination was the staffroom at the southwestern tip visual and music arts building, and they weren’t that far away from it, now.

  … Is there any part of the academy that hasn’t been struck by the bugs, though?

  He grimaced, looking out the windows and broken walls as he squeezed Emilia’s hand in his. The western, southern, and eastern academy buildings were all terrifically tiny compared to the giant five-story-tall castle that was the main northern academy building. Staring at it looming over the rest of the academy in the distance, he couldn’t help but want to hold out hope—just because the mages were pushed back everywhere else didn’t mean the ones in the main building had fallen. If there were another group of survivors, they had to be in the north… or in the staff building they were heading towards, which could also be turned into an emergency shelter in times of crisis.

  Still.

  It’s a bit strange that there aren’t any giant bugs here–

  His eyes flickered to the right. His increased perception level paid off. The moment they stepped foot into the final corridor before the staffroom door at the very end, a shadow fluttered outside the window on his side.

  Both him and Cecilia yanked Emilia back. Emilia was about to ask what was going on, so Cecilia shushed with a “silence” while Zora grimaced, peeking out the window to gulp at the sight of a dozen giant black moths, all fluttering right outside the corridor.

  Patrolling, perhaps?

  On someone’s orders?

  ‘Mother’?

  “... I suppose they’ll see us the moment we try walking across the corridor,” he whispered, pushing Emilia’s head back as she tried peeking out as well. “You got anything, Miss Sarius? Any spell only you can use to distract them?”

  Cecilia pursed her lips, reaching over her shoulder for her satchel of dolls. “There’s… something I want to try, yes, but I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  “Why won’t it work?”

  “I’m not sure if I can actually do it.”

  “What is it?”

  She leaned in and whispered in his ear, her cheeks flushed red, and he groaned the moment he heard it.

  “Come on. You’ve been doing that since you were a kid,” he grumbled. “You even brought your instruments and dolls with you, so no harm in trying, right? Worse comes to worst, it completely backfires on us, we send Emilia back, and the two of us play hide and seek from the bugs in the building until they get tired of us.”

  “That and this are two very different things. If it doesn’t go well—”

  “This is Lord Cecilia, the Conductor Mage of homeroom 2-B, and she’s going to show us both a really impressive magic trick,” he whispered, smiling and turning to Emilia as he did. “Once she does it, we’re all gonna race across this corridor to those double doors at the very end, okay? Don’t look back, and don’t look out anywhere else—if you do, the magic will immediately lose effect.”

  Emilia nodded excitedly, baring her fangs as she grinned at Cecilia from ear-to-ear.

  “Okay!”

  “She said okay, Lord Cecilia,” he said, dipping his head at the fidgety, anxious music teacher. “You got this. It’s definitely a spell only you can cast. Hell, I’ll bet my most popular teacher award this year if you can’t actually do it.”

  Cecilia snorted as she peeked out the window one more time, trembling slightly. “We… haven’t even chosen this year’s award winners yet. You can’t just give away something you don’t have.”

  “Oh, but I will win it this year with all the cool magic tricks I’m able to do now,” he countered, squeezing Emilia’s hand and getting her ready to bolt. “Emilia will vote for me, right? You won’t give it to Miss Sarius who can’t cast any magic spells, right?”

  “Uh-huh!”

  “... No fair,” Cecilia muttered, as she pulled out one of her hand-sewn dolls from her satchel—a small doll resembling her—and cast “sing the academy’s anthem” on it.

  Then she pulled the window open and chucked it at the horde of moths as hard as she could.

  Zora didn’t wait. He grabbed Emilia, kicked Cecilia’s heel with a short laugh, and started sprinting across the fifty-metre-long corridor. Meanwhile, the giant moths didn’t immediately dive on them. They didn’t smash through the windows and tear the three of them to shreds. Instead, the doll Cecilia had casted “sing” on started singing Amadeus Academy’s anthem in a poor imitation of her own voice, distracting the moths wholly.

  Cecilia wasn’t looking, and neither was Emilia, but he glanced at the moths from afar as they dove after the singing doll. Their eyesight must be poor, and their intelligence truly lacking if they couldn’t even understand that there was no way that doll was a human, but… somehow, it distracted them long enough for the three of them to race past the final window.

  “... You’ve still got it, huh?” he said, grinning down at Emilia as Cecilia pulled her wand out of her flute. “Fun fact about Miss Sarius, number four: she had what I like to call a ‘ventriloquist phase’ back when she was a student, you see. She was really good at making her voice come from dolls even if they weren’t anywhere close to her, so she always creeped out the rest of the class whenever the gas lamps went out and we had to have lessons in the dark. It was terrifying, Emilia. You should’ve heard it back when she was still refining her ability to throw her voice. She sounded absolutely horrific—”

  “Shut it.” Cecilia scowled, smacking him on the back of his head before wading towards the giant mahogany door at the end of the corridor. She tugged on the doorknob and tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked on the inside. Someone’s activated shelter mode, I think.”

  Zora let go of Emilia’s hand and joined Cecilia by the door, trying the doorknob himself. She was right; the staffroom had a shelter mode, too, albeit much weaker and less reliable. The bolts and latches on the inside could be destroyed from the outside with a ram or a particularly massive hammer.

  Of course, they weren’t going to resort to trying to destroy the door without knocking first—and that he did, as quietly but as firmly as he could, not wanting to startle anyone who may be hiding inside.

  “Anyone in there?” he asked, knocking a few more times for good measure. “It’s Zo… it’s Mister Fabre and Miss Sarius. Open up. We’re all gathered at the dorm with 2-A and 2-B, so we need as many hands as possible to keep them safe.”

  “...”

  Silence.

  He tried again, Cecilia tried again, but it was Emilia who tugged on both of their cloaks and shook her head.

  The little girl mouthed two words—'nobody inside'—and Zora was inclined to believe her moth senses. She’d always been particularly keen about these sorts of things, but… if she was right, and there wasn’t anybody inside, then how could the door be locked?

  So he gave Cecilia a nod and waited until she came to the same conclusion as him: they both ‘struck’ the door and sent it flying inside, their enhanced strength really showing itself in the force of the spell. He winced as it made a loud clang against the wooden floorboards, but it didn’t seem like the flying moths noticed.

  Cecilia quickly dragged both of them inside just in case, and… once again, Cecilia gasped as he immediately cast ‘silence’ over Emilia’s ears, hoping it’d dull her senses just a little bit.

  Just a little bit.

  The giant staffroom may be pretty by itself—moss crept up the cosy wooden walls, intentionally leaky steam pipes filled the room with a thin atmospheric mist, personalised shelves and colourful cubicles separated every teacher’s workspace, and the giant verdant oak at the heart of the room was impossible to miss—but he didn’t want Emilia to see the mounds of shredded corpses strewn about the damp floorboards, nor the bodies that looked like their insides were sucked out and turned into jelly. Most cubicles were smashed through, most of the wooden wall was splintered, and while the great oak stood tall, its bark was scarred and gouged by massive claw marks.

  Even the giant hole above the oak couldn’t ventilate the putrid stench of death quickly enough.

  “... Big,” Emilia suddenly said, making him and Cecilia jolt.

  He was about to ask big ‘what’ when something suddenly fell behind them, and they all whirled around to see a bunch of debris dropping from the ceiling, blocking the door and their only exit out of the staffroom.

  Squishing Emilia between the two of them, he immediately stood back to back with Cecilia, both of their wands pressed to their lips and ready to sling out a dozen ‘strikes’.

  Whatever had killed the faculty and the teachers was still in here with them.

  And he knew, by the sinking sensation in his gut, that it wasn’t going to be a crippled bug like the short-winged butterfly he’d fought.

  Damn you, Julius.

  Why’d you have to go and turn the staffroom into your second botanical garden so a bug can crawl around like this?