The Worry of the Guardian

Bam! 

The door slammed open.

“Ahhh! I knew it!”

“Hieekk!!!”

Miss Cynthia suddenly barged into the back room and startled Annette in the middle of her reading. The poor girl instinctively jumped to the floor, folding her knees behind her legs and sitting down.

“I knew you'd hole up here again! I told you to go to your class!” the female professor said as she marched towards her student.

“I-I… did, ma'am!” Annette closed her eyes and squished her words out.

Miss Cynthia's hands, which were about to squish Annette's cheeks, came to a sudden stop. “Huh? You did?”

“Yes, I did, ma'am!” Annette answered like a soldier.

After hanging in midair for a moment, her hands moved to Annette's shoulders. “I see. That's good! How was it, your first day?”

“Um, it was tiring, ma'am. Also, they called me a ghost.”

Hearing that, Miss Cynthia closed her eyes and gave a wry smile.

“That's okay! It was just the first day! Tomorrow should be better… I think?”

That didn't sound very reassuring to Annette, but since her adviser's mood looked so much better now, she tried to take the chance to say what she had been meaning to share.

“Um, Miss Cynthia. I have something to tell you.”

“Sure! What is it? Do you need something for your class?”

“N-no, ma'am. It is about yesterday.” Annette grew nervous.

She had been so busy with other things all this time that Miss Cynthia had actually forgotten she needed to ask this girl about something too. She had a feeling this is what Annette wanted to tell her now.

“Right. The teachers told me they saw a divine magical light last evening. Was that, by any chance, you?”

Annette nodded in response.

This girl is really an impossible case, Miss Cynthia thought to herself.

***

The moment Annette felt the shake on the ground that day, her first instinct was for some reason to go all the way to the top floor of the library.

The balcony should give me a good look, she thought.

She left her back room and went to the main library building. She used wind magecraft to push herself all the way up to the botanical garden at the topmost floor in a flash. The botanical garden at the top floor was covered by a glass dome and the outer ring of it was a balcony.

Standing on the balcony, the sight of the colossal dragon came into view beyond the eastern campus wall. The warning bell then rang and people started coming out, crowding the front of the Academic Building Complex as she quietly observed the situation from above.

That is… Esmeraldo.

The giant dragon let out an otherworldly roar as it closed in. For Annette's ears, however, it sounded differently.

“Give it back! Please, give it back!”

“It cried,” muttered Annette.

In that moment, she felt something tingling within her. Was it warmth? Was it cold? Was it both? Or was it completely something else? Something within her definitely tried to emerge.

The autumn wind blew stronger high up atop the building, swaying her honey-brown hair. As the sun was slowly setting on the other side, the young girl raised a hand towards where the dragon was.

A line of words came to her mind as naturally as though she had always known them all her life.

“O warm sacred light, hear my plea,” she whispered.

Annette cast a spell she had never used for the first time, summoning a huge magic circle right under the dragon. A gentle light emerged, slowly enveloping the dragon.

“This feeling! My Lord… could it be you?”

Annette raised her other hand and cast a small, swirling wind. At the same time, a similar swirling wind formed near the dragon. It was an advanced wind magecraft that could carry sound between the two.

“I apologise. I'm not your master. Are you looking for him?”

“That is not it. I need that back. Please give it back!”

“What made you so anxious, Esmeraldo, the Guardian of Spring?”

“The Heart! The Heart of Spring was taken! I could feel it here. I am not mistaken. It is somewhere very close!”

Her brain recollected the information from one of the books she had read. The Heart of Spring, an extremely condensed mass of earth-aspected mana, thought Annette.

“However, if you get any closer, the campus might get crushed.”

“I apologise. I do not mean to,” Esmeraldo said apologetically.

Annette bit her lips as she said, “I shall find it for you.”

“Ughhh… Would you, really? My Lord entrusted it to me. I truly need that back!” Esmeraldo sobbed.

“I promise you I'll find it. Um… Could I… humbly ask you to leave for now, Mighty Guardian? Your presence seems to worry the people on these grounds. If you would, I shall come and find you in due time.”

“I understand. I shall trust you. You have my thanks, mage of light. I shall leave you something to guide you to my dwelling hidden nearby this spot. Should you need me, you may also summon me through it.”

Esmeraldo then slowly turned its body around and carefully left, trying not to crush anything along the way. Before leaving, Esmeraldo said one last word.

“My apologies.”

***

“So, that's what happened, ma'am. That's why I attended the class too, so I could search for the Heart better,” said Annette.

Miss Cynthia stared at her student as she explained what happened at the time the guardian visited their campus. The young professor's mind seemed to be full of questions, though she believed most of them were something Annette could not answer. But at least, there should be one question that Annette was supposed to be able to answer.

“How can you understand what the dragon said?” Miss Cynthia asked.

“Huh? I just understand.”

What's going on with this girl? Or is she just the truest genius?

“How are you planning to find it? Can't you just use a mana detection spell to search the whole campus?”

“I did as soon as Esmeraldo left, ma'am. Esmeraldo said it was sure the Heart was somewhere here, but I couldn't find any trace. Probably it was stored somewhere with a mana-concealing spell.”

Annette had deduced that whoever stole the Heart must be using a mana-concealing spell which prevented it from being detected by a mana detection spell. Her only option now was to get close to where it was being stored.

The Heart was a mass of highly condensed mana. As described in the books, it contained a large amount of mana which was compressed into a single mass, making it the most powerful “fuel” for magecraft. Any mage should be able to easily sense the presence of such a clump of enormous mana if they were close enough.

Miss Cynthia closed her eyes and sighed. “I guess we have no other choice but to either find the place where it's stored or be lucky and get close enough to sense it. Yush! Just keep attending your class while searching for it. I will also try to do the same. Ah! Also, Annette, make sure you do not use magic other than wind magecraft—your natural element! The Heart being stolen means the thief is definitely either the teachers, the staff, or maybe even the students of Athenya. You should absolutely be careful! You shouldn't let anyone know your power!”

The natural element was the element the Spirit King blessed humans with at birth. It gave them a better chance at learning magic. To avoid any suspicion, Miss Cynthia told Annette to only use her elemental affinity.

“You hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am!”

***

It was almost curfew when Annette was on her walk back to the dorm. As usual, she left from the small door at the back of the library and used the path by the garden.

I'm glad that I finally could tell Miss Cynthia about it. Though, I'm still not sure where to start searching.

The path she took was dimmer as the night deepened. No one other than her could be seen around. Around this time, students were expected to already be in their respective dorms.

There were two dormitory complexes in Athenya. One in the west for the male students, while the other one was on the east side for female students. The library building was also on the east, which is fairly close to the female dormitory.

It shouldn't take long for Annette to reach the dormitory complex, but she slowed her steps the moment she heard something. It was the sound of some people speaking in a low voice, coming from the garden. Annette eventually stopped right there.

Who could be in the garden this late, I wonder.

Curiosity crept in and made her slowly walk closer towards its source. When she put more focus on listening, she predicted at least two people were there. Their conversation hadn't been audible to Annette before, but sometimes she could catch a word or two.

“Lord ___, are you sure ___? It has been ___.”

“Let it be. ___ that person is just a disposable pawn. More importantly, ___.”

“Yes, sir. I ___. But the guardian yesterday ___.”

One of them sounded like a man and the other was a woman. But what would a man do at this hour near the girls' dormitory?

“The guardian seems to know it's here. Make sure to hide it well.”

Huh?! Could they…?!

Annette noticed that their conversation was over and could hear sounds of steps getting closer. She instinctively hid herself in the bushes next to her. From her hiding spot, she could see the woman walking past her while the man was nowhere to be seen.

I'd better follow that woman.

Annette discreetly tried to follow the woman who just passed by her. That mysterious woman walked quickly and headed further away from the girls dormitory. As she walked, she kept glancing around to make sure no one was around. Annette managed to follow her all the way to the forest, but at some point, the silhouette of the mysterious woman disappeared from her sight.

Ugh, I haven't got a good look at her, thought Annette.

That night, the dark sky was cloudy, barely showing the moon. While hiding behind a tree, Annette tried to look around in the hope of catching a glimpse of that woman again, but she found nothing. Deciding that there was nothing else she could do, she hurried back to her dorm.

Annette arrived safely just in time for the curfew and rushed to her room. Earlier, the dorm manager had caught her at the entrance and gave a stern look at Annette in silence.

I'm safe! She threw herself on the bed face down.

The exhaustion of her first day attending the class had finally poured over her whole body and she let out a heavy sigh.

It was dark and I couldn't see her much. But there's a possibility they are connected to the stolen Heart.

The conversation between the two suspicious figures wasn't completely audible to her. However, she was quite sure that they mentioned the guardian. Were they the ones who stole the Heart of Spring? Was it just a coincidence? Regardless, there was one thing Annette was quite sure of.

It seemed like there wasn't just one suspicious person hiding in Athenya.