Zora knew very well what he was looking at. He’d learned all about the infamous systems and their ‘status interfaces’ back when he was a student at this very academy.

  Year Zero, the year of the Great Descent—when the armies of giant mutated bugs known as the 'Swarm' first appeared from rifts in the sky over sixty years ago, humanity struggled to repel them. They multiplied too quickly. Their claws were sharp like no ordinary metal in the world, their chitins were tougher than their hardiest shields, and they were brimming with bioarcanic essence. When consumed, humans could gain the bioarcanic magic and mutations of the bug they devoured, but at great costs; too much bioarcanic essence consumed would sap away at their humanity, and eventually, uncontrollably mutate them into flesh-hungry monsters themselves.

  Emilia was one such case. It simply wasn't possible for humans to fully control the bioarcanic essence they could obtain from devouring bugs.

  ... That was, until Year Eleven, when the first systems were crafted by legendary smiths in the far east.

  Infused with bioarcanic essence, the 'Symbiotic Systems' gave humans the ability to fight back with bioarcanic classes. If someone had a Butterfly Class, they'd unlock the biomagic and mutations of a specific butterfly. If someone had a Beetle Class, they'd unlock the biomagic and mutations of a specific beetle. As long as the person in question had a class, they'd never lose their humanity no matter how much bioarcanic essence they consumed, and instead of mutating uncontrollably, they’d gain ‘points’ instead to manually increase their strength with.

  The systems gave humanity the chance to fight back.

  But though it'd been decades since humanity began mass-producing all sorts of classes across mankind's final continent, most humans were still without a system. People still needed to be physically and biologically 'suited' for the class they were about to receive—not being able to survive the 'system integration' because of weakness, frailty, sickness, or just biological incompatibility with their system's bioarcanic essence was a rather common but unfortunate occurrence—so people who had classes included most trained soldiers in major battlefronts and most wandering bug-slayers who fought for hire, but civilians and commoners like him?

  He’d never thought he’d get a class, much less survive the integration so easily.

  [Class Obtained: Magicicada]

  [Swarmblood Art Unlocked: God Tongue]

  [Brief Description: Your words can compel physical reality to bend to your will when infused with bioarcanic essence\

  [T1 Core Mutation Unlocked: Resilin Tymbal Lvl. 1]

  [Brief Description: Your inner throat has hardened with chitin. Your voice is much more difficult to break. Subsequent levels in this mutation will decrease the stamina drain from using your voice]

  Still kneeling, he squinted at the status interface next to his head and tried to swipe at it in a daze, but his hand merely passed through the screen. It was just a projection, after all. Something only he could see with his cicada-shaped spinal implant.

  … Magicicada Class, huh.

  Gritting his teeth, he looked at the old mage and gave the man a quiet prayer.

  He’d never been particularly close with any of the mages who guarded the academy all year round, but he did know the fifty or so of them were the last ‘Magicicada Mages’ in the entire world. The blueprints to replicate the Magicicada Class systems were lost and destroyed when the mages had to evacuate from the far-eastern continent in a hurry—when they were being hunted to extinction by the Swarm—and since they couldn't pass their systems down to younger generations because humans of this continent weren't able to survive the system integration, their lot had been a rare, ageing, dying breed for the better part of two decades.

  But he'd survived the integration quite breezily, and he was born and raised on mankind’s final continent.

  Why?

  And how?

  But whatever reason it was, there was a good chance he was the youngest Magicicada Mage in the world right now, and... as far as stories and rumours went, there was also no chance he didn’t know what their most infamous biomagic was. Each class had their own unique biomagic, after all—their own unique 'Swarmblood Art'—and the Magicicadas Mages were no exception.

  God Tongue.

  The Swarmblood Art of the Magicicada Class: the magic to cast ‘spells’ with my voice.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luxury to think about it immediately. Emilia groaning next to him yanked him back to reality, and then he heard the once-distant sounds now terrifyingly close to them: a hundred giant legs skittering across the earth outside the broken wall, barging straight through the gates of the academy.

  The Swarm was fast approaching, and he had to get out of the language arts building now.

  “... Wake up, Emilia,” he whispered, shaking the girl gently as he snapped his head out the broken front door. There shouldn’t be anyone in the language arts building at this time of day, but there were loud, inhuman crashes in the corridors outside. His heart hammered in his chest. “We can’t stay here.”

  Emilia muttered something incoherent under her breath, so he was about to flick her forehead when the loud crashes outside became a monstrous screech. If nothing else, that woke the drowsy Emilia up. She snapped upright, whirled to stare at the dark doorway in a panic, and before she could freak out and make any noise—

  Zora reached deep in his stomach, drew upon his stronger, firmest voice, and spoke.

  “Sit up straight,” he said, breathing ripples of physical, tangible sound waves as he did.

  Then the sound waves curled around Emilia’s body, making her back snap straight.

  The suddenness of the motion made her breaths hitch, but Zora didn’t stop with that first ‘spell’.

  “Buttons up, sit at attention, look straight at me,” he said, more physical sound waves coming out of his mouth. The loose buttons on her uniform clasped themselves, her sitting posture straightened even further, and her head whipped over to face him directly. As she blinked and tried to make sense of what she just did not of her own volition, he gave her one last command: “Hold your breath for just a minute, will you?”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  And as her mouth clamped shut, he dragged both of them behind the toppled teacher’s desk—right as a Giant-Class butterfly poked its head through the doorway, making the entire floor tremble as it did.

  Zora bit his lip. He could see its moonlit reflection from a shard of glass lying next to him: a dread-inspiring giant butterfly with two short azure wings, torn and bleeding, and its three-metre-long lollipop-like antennae were swishing slowly through the classroom. It was a far, far bigger monster than he could’ve ever imagined seeing in the academy.

  The small hairs on Emilia’s neck lifted, and her little antennae stood up straight slowly, unintentionally, as though she were trying to get a proper look of the bug. He physically grabbed her antennae and pushed them down to prevent the butterfly from spotting them, but by the Great Makers’ good name, the little girl was strong as all hell. In the end, he had to resort to flicking her on the forehead just to make her calm her antennae.

  That, unfortunately, had a side effect of making her forget to hold her breath, and a sharp gasp leaked from her lips.

  The giant butterfly’s antennae immediately swerved over. His eyes widened as he clamped his hands over Emilia’s mouth, his heart pounding against his ribs.

  Don’t look, he thought, clenching his jaw, hoping his mental words would reach her. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

  Don’t make a single. Sound.

  And the two of them sat there, backs pressed against the table until he eventually heard the giant butterfly creeping slowly into the room.

  It’d noticed something.

  It’d heard Emilia’s gasp.

  … Shit.

  Every heavy step felt like a hammer striking an anvil. The giant butterfly neared, its killing pressure slamming into the back of his head like thunder, and Emilia started trembling where she sat. Zora knew it wasn’t just going to back off now. It knew something was off in the room, and unless he could distract it, maybe toss something somewhere without it realising someone was behind the distraction…

  Something clicked in his head as his eyes wandered over to the giant music player at the back of the classroom. The gramophone the academy’s one and only music teacher insisted every teacher had in their homeroom.

  As quietly as he could, he swiped the mage’s bloody wand off the ground before pressing its sharp tip to his lips.

  “Pull the lever, play the gramophone,” he whispered.

  He spoke physical sound waves again, but this time, they flew from his lips to the tip of his wand, then swirled around his wand and made it shimmer.

  So the wands really are made to absorb sound waves.

  I always wondered why the old mages carried their wands around.

  With his spell swirling around the wand, he took a deep, quiet breath and glanced at the distant gramophone again. It was too far away. If he shouted at it to ‘start playing music’, the giant butterfly would hear him shout, and then he’d die.

  If he could cast his spell quietly on his wand, then fling the spell at the gramophone like he was throwing a stick of chalk instead…

  He didn’t hesitate.

  There was no time to hesitate.

  With a sharp exhale, he flicked his wand in the direction of the gramophone, and his spell whipped towards the machine with a tiny thud. The giant butterfly immediately screeched, noticing the small sound—but then the lever on the side of the gramophone yanked itself down, and the academy’s anthem began roaring out the brass horn, a sound so heavy and solid even Zora felt his eardrums ringing.

  The giant butterfly, with its antennae swerving so close to the gramophone, had it the worst. It screeched and swung its antennae into the machine, smashing it to bits, and then it decided it no longer wanted to stay in the room with the haunted gramophone.

  Zora waited ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then thirty seconds—it wasn’t until he couldn’t even hear the giant butterfly retreating, crashing and bumbling through the narrow corridors that he finally sighed, pulling his free hand off Emilia’s mouth.

  They both started gasping for breath. Emilia opened her mouth slightly, but no sound came out. It was like she didn’t even realise she could start talking again, so it was only when he started rubbing her head to comfort her that tears started welling up in her eyes.

  He reached forward and pulled her into his chest, letting her hug him, her arms trembling as she breathed hard to calm herself down.

  For his part, he kept on rubbing her head as he scowled at the empty doorway behind them.

  So if I ‘charge’ my wand with my spells, I can flick them out faster and farther. Good to know.

  But what does that physician always say about short-winged butterflies?

  They can't fly because they’re born with unusually short wings, but in exchange, they have extremely sensitive veins in their wings that let them hear even the tiniest of squeaks. It’s a strength and also a weakness, because they’re extremely susceptible to abrupt loud noises. They get disoriented whenever their sense of hearing gets overloaded.

  And he could think and think and think about the giant butterfly until sunrise, but there was something more important he had to do.

  “... Amadeus Academy’s foremost protocol during a Swarm infestation is evacuating all students to the dormitory building,” he whispered, peeling Emilia gently off him and looking her in the eye as he held her body still. “We’re going to the dorm. Do you think you can stand and walk there with me?”

  Emilia was still shaking slightly as a bead of sweat fell from her brow, but she managed to give him a small nod.

  “Good,” he said softly, rising to his feet and picking her up by the armpits as he did. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Maybe your mutations let you regenerate faster than usual, but—”

  “What’d you just do, Mister Zora?” she asked, looking quizzically at the wand dangling loosely in his hand. “You just told me to do something, and… I did it. Then you told the music machine to start playing, and it did. Was that… magic?”

  “That’s right,” he murmured absentmindedly, taking her hand and escorting her to the doorway. He peeked his head out and looked left and right, seeing pitch-black darkness on both ends; the gas lamps had all been extinguished. Not a single lantern was lit on this floor. “You may now call me Lord Fabre, the Thousand Tongue Mage of homeroom 2-A. From now on, whatever I say becomes reality, so trust me when I say we’ll get out of this safely. Just do whatever I tell you to do.”

  Emilia nodded, breathing softly as she did. “O… Okay. But... um, how did you button my uniform up with just your voice?”

  It’d be reckless leaving the classroom before he understood the general mechanics of his new magic, so, throwing a glance at the clock above the doorway, he looked down at Emilia and gave her a wink.

  “Like this,” he said. “All dust, shake off the uniform. Shoelace, tie yourselves. Oversized sleeves, pull yourselves up, and… give me a good smile, Emilia?”

  Emilia was close enough that he could just cast his spells without his wand, and his physical sound waves curled around her—shaking dust off her uniform, tying her shoelace, and pulling up her oversized sleeves in that exact order. However, Emilia didn’t smile. She was too busy looking down at herself, too busy marveling at the sound waves that fixed her entire uniform up to even acknowledge his final command.

  … Hm.

  I can imagine shaking dust off her uniform, tying her shoelace, and pulling up her sleeves, but I can’t…

  He didn’t finish the thought.

  Touching the little protrusion on the back of his neck, he opened his ‘status interface’ and took a glance at it.

  [Name: Zora Fabre]

  [Grade: F-Rank Giant-Class]

  [Class: Magicicada]

  [Swarmblood Art: God Tongue]

  [Aura: 500]

  [Points: 0]

  [Strength: 1, Speed: 1, Toughness: 1, Dexterity: 1, Perception: 1]

  [// MUTATION TREE]

  [T1 Mutation | Resilin Tymbal Lvl. 1]

  [T2 Mutations | Basic Tympana | Basic Abdovoid] 50P

  He grimaced as he looked the words and numbers over. As a teacher, of course he’d made himself aware of the infamous ‘status interfaces’ people with systems had access to, but… there was little point in engaging with it right now. He didn’t have any ‘points’ to spend on anything, and without points, there was nothing he could do with his status interface. His best course of action right now would just be to get Emilia to the dorm.

  Hopefully, at this time of the day, the students in his class were all already tucked in their beds, preferably watched over by a teacher who was keeping the dorm gates on lock.

  “... Alright,” he said, putting a confident smile on his face as he waved the status interface away. Hand in hand, the two of them stepped out of the classroom, and he immediately pulled her down the right corridor. “We’re going to the dorm. Wanna see me do something really cool again, though?”

  Emilia’s face lit up. “Yeah! Is it more magic?”

  “Mhm. Watch this.”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, he closed his eyes for a brief moment and tried to ‘imagine’ himself being able to do what he was about to cast.

  If this works, this entire Swarm infestation is over.