Should she say this place is overflowing with stamina-enhancing magic?
If the same training outside improves your abilities by one, training here improves them by ten. Even if you get injured or badly hurt, your wounds heal quickly.
And with her healing magic added on top of that, she was confident she could save someone even if they fell from that cliff.
It was the same back then, too.
It seemed this place had long since been forgotten, but in the past, the knights of House Ellesia often came here to train.
Nostalgia, longing, bitterness. A swirl of emotions welled up inside Ceres. She closed her eyes for a moment.
The trail leading to the cave had become so overgrown that it was nearly impossible to make out. The place must have been left untouched for so long.
Long enough that even Ceres found herself doubting her own memory.
Are they idiots?
Why would they leave a place this valuable to rot? Had they really cast aside the sword completely?
As memories of the knights of House Ellesia came to mind, Ceres clicked her tongue.
“You seriously expect us to climb that rock mountain?”
“Mm. Once you get used to the rock mountain, you’ll move on to the snow mountain next.”
“......”
She can’t be serious. She really expects us to climb that?
“What are you standing around for? Start climbing.”
“......”
She’s serious!
“I’ll give you one hour. Just remember that the person who finishes last gets double training tomorrow.”
“What?!”
“Ready...”
“W-Wait a second, Ceres!”
“Start!”
“—!”
As soon as Ceres gave the signal, everyone took off at once. Their instincts screamed at them that they absolutely couldn’t come in last.
***
“What’s wrong with them?”
“No idea. They’ve been like that every day lately.”
Iron, the leader of Group A, looked around the classroom with a puzzled expression.
Students from Group B were sprawled across their desks as though they’d all planned it together.
For the past few days, they had been rushing off somewhere the moment class ended. Ever since then, whenever they were in the classroom, they looked half-dead like this.
What the hell had they been doing?
“Oi.”
“.......”
Iron called out to Antonian, who was sitting closest to him, but there was no response.
Did he fall asleep?
Even so, how dare he ignore his call?
Bang!
Annoyed, Iron kicked the desk hard. Only then did Antonian slowly raise his head and look at him.
“...What?”
When their eyes met, Iron flinched without meaning to.
What was with that look?
Antonian stared back at him with dull, lifeless eyes, like his soul had already left his body. The sight caught Iron so off guard that he forgot what he was about to say.
Then, noticing everyone staring at him, he awkwardly cleared his throat and opened his mouth again.
“What have you guys been doing lately?”
“...Good question. What are we even doing?”
“You crazy b*stard. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Iron...”
Antonian called his name in a strangely sentimental voice.
“W-What?”
A chill ran down Iron’s spine for some reason. Frowning deeply, he stared back at Antonian.
“You were one of the decent ones.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying.”
Compared to her, everything they had suffered until now felt like harmless teasing.
“Haa...”
Antonian let out a long sigh as he stared blankly toward the distant mountains.
Mountains... mountains... those damned mountains.
Rustle.
As though agreeing with him, the others who had been lying motionless on their desks slowly pushed themselves upright one after another.
“—!”
Their hollow, exhausted faces looked no different from Antonian’s.
“...You guys wouldn’t understand.”
“My body isn’t tired, but mentally, I feel so drained.”
“At this point, I almost wish I’d just collapse already, but this insane body of mine won’t even break down. Why the hell am I still fine...?!”
“I know, right?”
Have these guys completely lost it? What were they talking about?
Even under Iron’s bewildered stare, the students of Group B merely continued sighing with lifeless expressions.
“You know what the craziest part is?”
The training was brutal. Exhausting enough to make them feel like they were losing their minds.
But... I still want to go back.
Antonian and the others stared down at their hands before clenching them into fists.
They could feel it clearly. Their stamina and swordsmanship were improving at a noticeable rate.
They didn’t know the exact reason, but every time they followed Ceres’s training, their bodies changed little by little.
For people who had desperately longed for results, that place had already become impossible to walk away from.
“We’re heading to the snow mountain starting today, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Shouldn’t we at least bring scarves or something?”
“A scarf? I spent an entire day submerged in the river and didn’t catch a cold. If you bring something like that and get caught, she’ll just say your mindset is weak and make you climb the snow mountain twice instead of once. You know what my sister is like.”
“...True.”
“Antoniaaaan... what exactly is your sister?”
“...I don’t know either.”
Another wave of long sighs swept through the group.
Watching them, Iron’s expression twisted.
Look at these b*stards. They were completely ignoring him now.
“Oi!”
Swish.
“—!”
More than a dozen dead-looking eyes turned toward him at once. Iron flinched instinctively.
“Iron, do you know how to clean?”
“What?”
“You should learn. You’ll be doing plenty of it soon.”
Leaving behind a bewildered Iron, the students of Group B collapsed back onto their desks and drifted off to sleep again.
It was the bare minimum they needed to survive the next round of training.
***
“This is driving me insane.”
Tower Master Cheion sat perched on the windowsill, roughly raking his hand through his hair.
He had spent days agonizing over it, yet he still couldn’t find an answer.
“There’s really no one, right, Luca?”
“Yes. We found no trace of anyone. If Room 21 had really opened, rumors would’ve spread long ago. Whoever opened it would never leave behind the formulas or artifacts obtained from inside.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
Cheion irritably ran his hand through his disheveled hair. The whole thing was so far beyond common sense that all he could do was agonize over it.
A few days ago, he had finally succeeded in opening the next door inside the white tower created by the former Tower Master, Artia.
The answer to the 21st question was hidden inside a first-edition copy of Artia’s autobiography Cheion found in an old bookstore.
Filled with excitement, he opened the door to Room 21...
[Welcome. Congratulations on becoming the second person to enter this room.]
...Second?
The joy he felt lasted only a moment.
Cheion could do nothing but stare blankly at the image of Artia before him.
He had definitely been the first person to enter Room 21. How could someone else have opened it before him?
“The artifacts were still there too.”
If someone had opened the room, shouldn’t they have taken the reward inside with them? However, the priceless artifacts remained untouched.
“Could it have been an error?”
“Do you really think a magical space created by someone as brilliant as me would have such a flaw?”
Cheion immediately shook his head.
Artia, of all people?
The greatest mage in history creating such a sloppy error?
Impossible.
“There’s definitely someone who entered Room 21 before me. Keep investigating. Check everyone who’s entered and left recently too.”
“Yes.”
No matter how much he thought about it, he still couldn’t understand.
Why leave the artifacts behind? For a mage, it should’ve been impossible to resist.
“Maybe they weren’t mages.”
“—!”
An unfamiliar voice suddenly interrupted their conversation. Startled, Cheion and Luca quickly turned toward the door.
A man was leaning casually against the entrance.
“You’re...”
“...The frozen man?”
Kainel Persia.
The moment they recognized him, both their eyes widened.
“What the hell? How did you get in here?”
Anyone trying to enter the Magic Tower without permission had to break through many defensive spells first.
The last time the Spirit King of Fire attempted to force his way inside, the entire tower had nearly descended into chaos.
The Magic Tower never overlooked intruders, especially not the Tower Master’s office.
What magic did he use?
At this point, Cheion found that far more shocking than Kainel’s sudden appearance.
“A secret passage.”
“A secret passage? What are you talking about?”
There was something like that inside the Magic Tower? And worse, a passage even the Tower Master didn’t know about?
Cheion was so stunned that he failed to notice he had spoken casually to Kainel.
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes!”
Cheion nodded immediately. Kainel took a step closer.
Seeing that Cheion showed no caution, Luca sighed before stepping in front of him.
“What brings you here?”
Wasn’t this entire situation far too strange?
The secret passage alone made no sense, and the Grand Duke of Persia suddenly appearing here without notice was even harder to understand.
“I have something to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“If I can’t answer it, then Lord Cheion won’t be able to either.”
“Wait, where is that confidence coming from?”
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