Welcome

A new day.

This was the day.

The Academy had been generous, but Haruki knew – it was time for him to leave. Maybe he would be able to visit Kiera every other day or something. It was strange that Loto and Oric promised him a spot in the Academy but then made him take the exam. But then again, it would probably be a hundred times worse if he actually passed and got sent on those dangerous missions.

But a part of him, deep down inside – was stirring a hidden feeling.

That feeling that maybe for one day:

He wanted to feel what it was like to succeed, just once.

The morning sun spilled across the academy courtyard, its golden light making the banners ripple like fire. Students gathered in tight clusters, their voices buzzing with speculation, nerves, and weary excitement.

Haruki stood among them, arms crossed, trying not to show how certain he was of his own failure. But he also told himself that surely, nobody here even noticed a person like him. Someone who was not a danger to anybody.

A Deacon strode out with a scroll and an expression carved from stone.

“The following students,” he announced, “have demonstrated sufficient knowledge, resolve, and clarity of thought to proceed into the Academy.”

One by one, names were read aloud. Each declaration sent a ripple of cheers, groans, or stunned silence through the whole courtyard. Every one of the usual suspects’ names had been called. Kaelos, Thessa, Chuwa, and of course, Kiera as well.

Then came the pause. The Deacon’s eyes swept the list before calling out a name nobody had ever heard of:

“Haruki of Earth.”

The name rang like a bell. For a moment he thought he had imagined it. But then Kiera waved at him while on stage, smiling bright. Haruki’s own chest tightened with disbelief. He had passed. Somehow, impossibly, he had passed.

When his turn came, he climbed the steps to the stage. The Deacon held out a wide-brimmed hat with a cone on top – one of dark fabric with a simple silver buckle around the base. If he didn’t know any better, he would think this was some kind of mix between one of those pilgrim’s hats and a video game wizard’s cone hat. But obviously, a Wizard in this world was something else.

Apparently, every student on stage was given one of these hats as well. Each one seemed to transform itself ever so slightly the moment they were placed on their heads. Kaelos’ hat turned into a subtle shade of red, while Chuwa’s hat widened to fit his massive head, even changing the fabric into something smoother as well.

Kiera’s hat was peculiar, because the moment her hat was placed on her head – it immediately combusted into flames, disintegrating.

She was baffled, but Oric simply laughed it off while merely whispering:

“Don’t worry, the hat is there. You just can’t see it.”

She responded with a smile, bowing her head in earnest appreciation.

For Haruki – the moment his hat was placed on his own head by the Deacon:

The hat morphed itself into a slight shade of green. He wondered what this meant for him as a person. But that was a question that he reckoned probably didn’t have an answer at this moment. So for now – all he felt in this moment was a feeling of being refreshed.

He bowed his head toward the Deacon and thanked him.

Haruki had not come here seeking to belong. He hadn’t even thought he could. Yet here he was, hat casting a shadow over his eyes, the beginning of something larger pressing down on him with all its quiet gravity.

With a cheer among the students and the Elders – their journey now began.

Far away, deeper into the dark woods…

Back in that blue castle.

Within its hollow halls, silence reigned – suffocating anything that would dare enter.

From the center chamber, stone cracked with a grinding groan as the tall Wizard stirred. His form was bent but unyielding, a silhouette that did not look like anything. Slowly, with deliberate patience, he lifted his ruined arm from the ground and pressed it back into place. Flesh knit with a wet sound, bone clicking against bone until it sat again in its proper socket.

He drew in a breath, the sound more a rasp than anything remotely human.

His head tilted, lips curling faintly as though savoring something unseen. Then came the words, whispered faintly:

“Such a delicate, flickering taste…” His tongue grazed the edge of his teeth, eyes narrowing as hunger growled in his bottomless pit.

“Let me feed.”