The Wood excelled at confusing your sense of time. The day had to be close to noon by now, though it gave no outward sign of it and we kept up with our morose hike. The host tree shouldn't have been far anymore.

  We passed a few weary walkers along the trail, unused to athletics and overwhelmed by the inexplicably lulling weight in the air. One pair had stopped at a small, sheltered campsite by the path for an early lunch break. I was growing hungry myself, but it didn’t seem my partner was willing to sit down for a minute.

  Silla asked everyone we met about Audrey Trudeau’s gang, but the responses were all negative and didn't sound like lies. Trudeau had to have had a senior fencer with field experience guiding her gang. They probably meant to cut straight through the trees to the destination to avoid encountering us on the trail.

  Good thinking, but it wouldn't work.

  Manawaves had more uses than merely sweeping the environment. If charged up a bit more, they’d leave residual energy onto the objects they hit, which allowed a competent caster to tag mobile parts and track their whereabouts. My senses were hindered by the seals so that I couldn’t pinpoint the bracelet’s precise location, but I could roughly feel the general direction and would know if we passed our quarry.

  Though Silla didn’t take my word for it.

  I found myself envying her capability to get so passionate about things in which I saw no meaning whatsoever. Name. Blood. Legacy. Honor. Pride. History.

  Identity.

  They were words commonly thrown around in the military too, to imbue the troops with fighting spirit and a sense of purpose, but their effect typically only made people die faster. Was it better to have those things or to not have them in the world of peace?

  We marched on, Silla maintaining a slight lead on me.

  “So,” I spoke to distract myself from the incessant swing of her hips in my field of view. “You have talent and knowledge, so how come you're only in class B?”

  “As if you care,” she replied with a bitter snort.

  “Your anxiety is contagious. Think about something else.”

  After a moment of dour silence, she relaxed her pace a little and started to talk in a hard tone,

  “…I had my Ascension on Monday, on the entrance exam week. I didn’t sleep a wink that night and had a high fever. I forced myself to the exam, but couldn’t focus when my circuitry hurt so much. I made a lot of trivial mistakes that lowered my score. The fever let up after Wednesday, but then it didn’t matter anymore. Suppose I should be grateful I got in at all.”

  “Tough luck.”

  “The story of my life. Don’t pretend you feel sorry for me.”

  “So your Ascension is the reason our classmates are picking on you?”

  “What else?” she spat. “Everyone thinks my father paid for the assessment. Because I’m not the Archmage’s granddaughter, or a Hallant, or a Blackwood! The Silla House may be old, but we’ve had few prominent casters in recent times. My father gave up on magic and chose to commit his all to politics. We’re not even members of Mysterium anymore. So me being Tier 4 clearly has to be a lie. And losing a duel to a certain Tier 2 certainly didn’t help things…”

  When did the tiers become public knowledge, anyway?

  “Well, four is considered the first superhuman level,” I said. “Some things you have to see to believe.”

  “Hmph. I really must have hit rock bottom if you’re consoling me.”

  We walked on for a while without talking. But the humid, foreign buzz of the forest bore down on us too. The spiritual mass of the Domain seemed to grow heavier the closer we got to the center, and the only reprieve we had of its evergreen embrace was in each other.

  “Why?” Silla suddenly asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why won’t you ask me anything?”

  “I just did?”

  “Not that! I thought you put the curse on me to extort me for money or favors. Our family may not rank high in the magic community, but we still hold considerable wealth and influence in Canelon. Many court our favor by flattery, bribes, and thinly veiled threats. But though you got such leverage, you’ve made no demands. What are you scheming?”

  “I told you what I want. That you don’t ask stupid questions, and make my life more complicated than it needs to be. Beyond that, I have no interest in you or your family.”

  Silla stopped short, enraged. “As if that could be true!”

  I kept on walking past her. “You don’t have to believe me. As long as you do as I say.”

  Then a random thought occurred to me.

  I put on a knowing smile, turned back to the girl and drew my shirt collar downward, stretching my neck in view.

  “Or what? Are you actually disappointed? You want me to blackmail and order you? But not for money or status—you wish it were your body I wanted? Since you are a pervert.”

  Silla's poise wavered, her faced at once red.

  “I’m not thinking about anything like that!” she yelled at full volume. “Don’t even dream of it! You're mad!”

  “Thou doth protest too much.”

  “Be silent!”

  She took off briskly striding past me, fuming and her steps comically stiff.

  What a troublesome princess. Taking every little thing so seriously.

  “You're much too emotional for a magician,” I said, dropping the act.

  “You don't have the right to tell me that!” she growled. “I can’t get you out of my mind. Day and night, I see your stupid face when I close my eyes. I can’t concentrate on the lectures, when I know you’re sitting right behind me! Why did I have to end up in the same class with a witch like you!? Everything’s a mess now! Even the things that used to be easy for me before are suddenly so difficult! It’s your fault I’ve turned like—like this! Twisted! It’s all your fault! I’ll never forgive you for as long as I live! I hate you!”

  “...”

  When she put it like that, maybe I had a real cause to reflect on my behavior.

  But I couldn’t help it. Alice Silla was simply——too cute.

  The more I talked to this girl, the more I wanted to ruin her. The more indignant the look on her beautiful face, the more full of fire her voice, the hotter her rage, the more it delighted me. I wanted her to hate me even more, more intensely, think only about me, obsess about me…

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  No, no, no. What was I thinking? I mustn't get carried away. This wasn't like me.

  When did I get like this, anyway?

  I remember, in the very beginning, I wanted to be a hero too. Like Emily.

  Defeat the wicked. Protect the good. Save the world.

  The evil witch thing started off as a running joke, but somewhere down the line, before I knew it, I was it. The real deal. When did the change take place? Was it when I blew up Uruq? Or sometime after that? Or already long before that? Did I destroy that town because I was ordered to, because the greater good necessitated it, or—because I actually, really just wanted to?

  No, there was no clear starting point. The change was, as always, gradual and subtle.

  First I realized there could be no valorous justification for all that bloodshed, and killing just to make the killing stop faster was as virtuous as war could get. Then I realized it wasn’t ever going to end either. No, never permanently. There’d always been wars before and would probably always continue to be, for as long as two or more people lived on this earth. Win or lose, in every conflict they'd only plant the sapling of the next.

  One day we were the noble protectors and then we were suddenly the invaders. Having pushed the Tarachians out of our territory, we kept on going, first to secure the western borderline. Then we kept going to obtain better peace terms. Then we kept going to repay for the damages. And two years later, we were still going west, since it happened to be proceeding so well, and everyone laughed at the ideals of chilvary and called them childish.

  The deeper we cut our into the imperial federation, into that nest of bare-fanged hostility and bitter venom, the harder it got to remember the ordinary folk we were supposedly saving. Each time we were betrayed by the common people we’d tried to spare, we’d repeat to ourselves, “nobody’s innocent,” like some miasmatic mantra.

  Our world had no room left for trust and kindness, yet that was not the world we set out to save.

  A famous swordsman once said, “The first and last opponent you must defeat is the one in the mirror.” Was this the real meaning of that seemingly jejune utterance? Was there the final destination of all who took up arms and immersed themselves in the art of war? In victory becoming that which you sought to defeat? Endlessly waging a losing battle against the enemy in your self?

  What came after? Where could you even go from there?

  Just die off, spent and beyond redemption? How did that solve anything?

  The trail curved around a small basin sunken in the side of a mellow escarpment, At the bottom of the depression sat a mirror-clear pond circled by a formation of small stones. The curious arrangement stole our attention, and we went to have a closer look.

  Near the water stood a wooden signboard, which read, in weather-worn typeface,

  - GREENMERE -

  Do NOT touch the water.

  Do NOT look into the water.

  Do NOT believe what you see in the water.

  Silla frowned at the ambiguous warning.

  “What is this all about? I wanted to refill my water bottle. So is it not safe to drink?”

  “You can’t drink standing water,” I told her with a sigh, imagining the consequences if she'd paired up with someone else. “Don’t you even know that?”

  “How could I?” she snapped, flushing. “I’m not a woodward!”

  “Right. You were a sheltered princess.”

  “I’m not a princess!”

  I was about to head back to the path, but then thought again and turned back to Silla.

  “Hey. Try look into the water.”

  “Excuse me? Is there a problem with your glasses, or are you illiterate? It says to not look into it.”

  “I can see that. But the last line implies there’s some kind of magical effect on it. How could that be technically possible? Water is too unstable to hold long-lasting ritual forms, and has poor mana retention. I want to try to analyze it. But I might not be able to get reliable results if it's an effect that manipulates perception. I need an assistant.”

  If there were a method I didn't know to imbue a stable effect on an impermanent medium, it could give me a clue how the magic in the dragon rings was secured in place. Maybe. It was grasping at straws, but I’d take any hint I could get. Knowledge never went to waste.

  “Do you even hear the things that you say?” Silla replied incredulously. “How do you plan to ‘analyze’ such a obscure phenomenon, provided there is one?”

  “With my eyes. I won’t look at the water, but at the effect it has on you when you do. If it's merely an optical effect, there should be no risk of injury. They haven’t cordoned off the area either. If it looks bad, I'll intervene.”

  “I see you’ve already thrown the matter of my bracelet out of your mind…”

  “You’re not interested? Though water is your focus? Isn’t it in our nature to want to unveil what is unknown, as magicians?”

  The girl glanced at the green pond in the ring of stones. “You can’t be serious…”

  “Go ahead,” I told her, and went to stand a short distance away on the side and took off my glasses. “I’ll watch from over here.”

  “Why so far away...? Oh, fine. What’s one curse more? If that's what it takes to get going sooner…”

  Silla went to the water’s edge, crouched and peered over the line of stones.

  “Describe what you see,” I told her.

  “I see nothing. Only water and weeds. Algae. Pebbles. Sand. Small, swimming insects. Yuck.”

  “Try to reach into the water with Mana Sense. You can use it, right?”

  “Of course.”

  The young witch kept staring into the water, holding her silky hair back with her hand, increasingly annoyed, and sent forth her energy in a light, short burst. At first, there didn’t seem to be any change, or at least I couldn’t detect any. But all of a sudden, Silla’s expression showed a change. Her widened eyes began to track movements in the water, though no effect was visible from my position.

  Strange. There should've been no active rituals in the vicinity, but something was clearly happening.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Keep talking.”

  “I—I see images. They come and go. Quick flashes of different places. And…people? There are people in the forest? I see men and women, wearing these strange, foreign clothes of yellow-green, hiking in long lines between the trees. They look—grim and mean, and all have these ugly blades and bows. One man carries what looks like...a giant pine cone strapped in a rack on his back? And—ah! What is that? There's a huge white tiger! Running among the trees, not far from the men! They must know it’s there but they don’t seem to fear it? Why? It’s enormous! It’s coming this way! No! Now there are wolves! A pack of furious wolves! Their fur is black and there stones—crystals growing on their backs. Hellions! They’re coming! They’re coming this way! No. NO! Get away from me—!”

  Silla raised her arms to cover herself from invisible phantoms and fell back, quickly crawling away from the pond.

  I hurried over and tried to calm her, but she wasn't under any magical influence that I could've dispelled.

  “Take it easy. There’s nothing here. You’re safe.”

  “No, no,” she mumbled, covering her head with her arms. “They’re close! They're here! I could feel it. All those fiends—we’re in danger! Everyone—we must warn the others. We have to get out of the forest! Where’s the compass…! Tell the teachers!”

  She began to search for the compass that she'd put in her jacket pocket.

  “Stop it. There’s nothing near us,” I repeated and gripped her shoulders. “I’d sense them, if there were.”

  “I know what I saw!” she yelled back, frantic. “Why don’t you believe me!?”

  “Control yourself, Silla. Alice! I know what it was now. There’s no formula in the water. It’s residual mana from the trees. It flows down here, mixed in rainwater. The trees of the Wood use manawaves to communicate with each other. Bonding with their energy reflected the forest's experiences to you. But their network mixes information from all over the Scarlet Forest, not from any one specific Domain. It’s not in a format meant for human brains. With your high sensitivity, the load is too much. What you feel is the terror of the Wood and its creatures, it’s not your own. Separate yourself from it.”

  “I—I don’t know how…” she whimpered and withdrew behind her knees.

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to do it. I’m sorry.”

  Overcome with remorse, I pulled the trembling girl closer to me.

  It was not any conscious action. A reflexive, primal instinct, a simple animal responding to the pain of another, shared by all living things.

  “Stop!” Silla pushed my arms away and turned away. “Don’t be good to me! Get away from me!”

  She sat in the dirt, hiding behind her dark, disheveled strands, shoulders heaving, and looking altogether pitiful.

  “Just let me hate you,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Dazed and disoriented, I stood wavering, and turned towards the forest path.

  “Fine. Blame it all on me, if that gives you comfort. All the things I did and even the things I didn’t. One girl’s hate isn’t a weight I’d even notice. I carry it with ease.”