Back at the ball.
Blood covered the marble floor.
The once elegant hall had turned into a slaughterhouse.
Among the chaos, a woman stood in the center of it all, ripping apart the bat like wings of an Aberrant with her bare hands.
Black blood splashed across her from head to toe, dripping from her hair and dress. Her beauty had been completely drowned beneath the grotesque mess of guts and intestines piled at her feet.
"Heather! What about the students?"
Heather swung his greatsword in a wide arc. The blade cleaved through a swarm of Aberrants rushing him, cutting a dozen apart in a single sweep.
"They got transported!" Heather shouted back while tearing another one.
"I need time to break through the distortion. Luckily, the location was diverted. I did not see any Aberrants entering the warped space, so they should be safe for now."
"So all we need to do is kill these squeaky little pests, right?" Zmey said cheerfully.
She stomped on an Aberrant's head.
It popped like a balloon.
Behind her, more Aberrants flew forward.
A sudden spiral of wind caught them mid-air, shredding them into ribbons before they could even scream.
"Mind your manners, everyone," Medley said calmly. "I have already evacuated the rest of the first-year students and the guests."
His green eyes flared as wind thrum gathered around him.
"Thank the heavens we voted against a combined celebration for all students. Otherwise, this disaster would have been far worse."
Still… these things are troublesome.
"They are not necessarily strong or intelligent," he continued, wind blades forming around him and piercing the Aberrant in the distance, but did not quite cut hard enough.
"Yet their resistance to magic itself is abnormal."
"I would say this is still a hundred times better than drowning in paperwork," Zmey said while punching another Aberrant straight through the torso.
"That is only because you never do any of it and dump it on me in the first pla—"
Medley got cut off by a loud sound reverberating above them.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Every Aberrant in the hall froze.
Then they knelt.
The instructors immediately took advantage of the opening, striking them down. Yet none of the creatures resisted. They simply remained kneeling as they died.
Footsteps echoed.
Not from the floor.
From above.
Someone was walking in the air.
Each step sent a ripple across the empty space beneath his feet, as if the air itself had become solid.
Crimson eyes stared down the hall.
He looked like a young adult.
Six pairs of wings spread behind him. Three on each side. Unlike the bat wings of the other Aberrants, these were covered in jet black feathers.
His skin was dark, leaning toward a gray tone rather than deep black. A closed eye rested on his forehead, and a pair of twisted red horns curved back from his temples.
His clothing looked strangely casual.
A sky blue hoodie hung loosely around his shoulders, the sleeves pushed slightly upward. His pants were loose as he was just wearing night pajamas.
Behind him floated two more Aberrants.
One was a woman with long sky blue hair, crimson pupils, and a single elongated horn. The other was an older man with gray-blue hair, red eyes, and similar horns.
They, unlike the Aberrant in the front, carry only one set of feathered wings.
Both wore military uniforms.
They hovered slightly behind the young man like escorts guarding a noble heir.
Heather glanced toward Medley.
He gave a small nod.
Medley nodded back.
Wind thrum erupted around him.
His body dissolved into rushing air.
A powerful current expanded outward, grabbing every instructor and the corpse of the victims in the hall before launching them away from the battlefield.
Éclair, Heather, and Zmey remained behind.
She floated upward and constructed a simple violet chair made out of thrum beneath herself, sitting down like someone waiting for a reunion.
"So," she said casually, resting her chin on her hand.
"What brings you here, future candidate to the throne of Prince of Sinners?"
The young demon walked forward.
Blackish blue haze gathered beneath him, forming a chair and table made from something that was not quite thrum.
He sat down across from her and crossed his legs.
"Well," he said calmly.
"Something interesting appeared."
"Make it quick," Éclairreplied.
"Know that I am only keeping you alive because of the pact we made."
"How scary."
The older Aberrant stepped forward and placed two cups and a kettle on the table. Steam rose gently as he poured fragrant tea into one of them and handed it to the young demon.
"Thank you, Beball."
Beball poured a second cup for Éclair.
She did not even glance at it.
Her eyes never left the Aberrant in front of her.
The young man lifted the tea, inhaled the aroma, and took a small sip before setting it back down.
"The number of throne candidates increased," he said.
His finger traced the rim of the cup, producing an eerie screech.
"We detected the birth of a candidate for the Throne of Sinners seventeen years ago."
His smile widened slightly.
"But another one appeared four months ago."
He looked up at her before glancing down at the trashed hall.
"You understand what that means, right?"
Éclair's thrum exploded outward.
Her hair whipped through the air as the pressure shook the entire hall.
She slowly stood.
Her fingers touched the teacup in front of her.
It crumbled into dust.
"If you ever touch my husband to be," she said growling,
"Fuck the pacts n'all, I will turn you into dust just like this cup."
_________________________________
Unknown Island
I looked around.
The group was still here.
But Azalea was missing.
"She's safe. I got her."
Cwal's confident and steady voice carried across the waves' noise behind me.
Hearing that eased something in my chest.
This was the moment where everything was supposed to start falling apart.
In the original episode, an Aberrant rushed straight at Finster. Azalea stepped in front of him and blocked the strike with her scythe. The blow snapped the weapon in half, and the broken blade drove straight into her eye socket.
Then the teleportation happened.
By the time they arrived here, she was already bleeding and half blind.
No paramedics would come to save them, and none among the students have learnt healing magic this early yet.
Days of salt air, dehydration, and infection cost her the eye entirely.
None of that had happened.
Not yet, at least.
Waffel began gathering everyone together, calling names and making sure no one had been separated.
While everyone regrouped, I walked a short distance away from the group and grabbed a thick piece of driftwood.
I drove it deep into the sand.
Far enough that the waves would not pull it out and that the wind would not knock it over.
Then I returned to the others.
Nagi immediately walked up to me.
"What were you doing?"
"Marking where we arrived," I said.
"Teleportation is usually two-way. If the space distortion opens again, we just return to the same location and jump back through."
"Oh," she nodded. "Like Sir Medley explained during last week's lecture."
She crossed her arms while thinking.
"He said most teleportation constructs create a temporary spatial anchor on both ends. The anchor stabilizes the exit point so that the path does not collapse immediately. If the caster maintains it long enough, the gate can reopen for retrieval."
"Exactly."
Though I knew that this was entirely a different case, I wouldn't want to raise suspicion, so I just kept it to myself.
Waffel clapped her hands to draw everyone's attention.
The chatter stopped.
She stepped forward and calmly assessed the situation.
"First, we must consider how we arrived here."
Everyone listened.
"It would not make sense for a teleportation like this to occur naturally; therefore, the most likely explanation is interference. Either an intruder or a terrorist attack targeted the academy."
Finster raised his hand.
"Isn't it possible the professors teleported us here to protect us?"
"That is possible," Waffel said.
Then her tone hardened.
"However, it is also possible that we were removed from the academy for the purpose of kidnapping."
She gestured lightly toward the group.
"Consider our class composition. Two princesses. One prince. Multiple heirs of influential houses."
Solaris and Maku exchanged glances.
Then both of them nodded.
"The value of abducting this group alone would justify a coordinated attack."
"So the logical conclusion," Waffel finished, "is that we move deeper into the forest."
Emma raised her hand.
"Wait. Wouldn't it be better if we stayed here? If the teleportation spot opens again, we could just go back."
"Precisely because it could reopen is the reason we must move away," Waffel replied.
She pointed toward the pole I planted.
"That location could become an entry point again. Not only for our instructors… but also for whoever attacked the academy."
Everyone fell silent.
"We will leave the most physically agile students here in rotation," she continued.
"Their task will be to monitor the teleportation marker and report immediately if the space distortion returns."
With that decided, Waffel grabbed the side of her dress.
Rip.
She tore the lower portion away so it would not restrict her movement.
Her high heels came off next. She tossed them aside and pulled a pair of sturdy shoes and high socks from her pocket storage necklace.
Once dressed for movement, she looked far more like a field commander than a noble guest at a ball.
"As expected of our class representative," Nagi commented.
"Next step," she said.
"We should scout the forest."
Her eyes moved across the tree line.
"We must determine whether the area contains magical or enhanced beasts. Only then do we locate a defensible place to establish temporary shelter."
"Once we have a secure camp, we will decide our next move."
Her gaze swept across all of us.
"Any suggestions?"