Sigrid Shelter, Haltor Kambos, Levor Falmianberry, June Dumas, Manir Acherfeller, Leir Nevron, Ezabel Belizath, Taro Maro, Mathurin Bordeaux, Slothoven and Victoria Ave Strassfey.
Those were the names of the non-mages who had entered the cave, the cold stone walls and the full moon bearing witness to their audacious ambition: to honour the goddess of love and, in return, claim the gift of mana—magic.
No sooner had they stepped inside than the ancient stone threshold groaned and sealed shut behind them. A collective startle rippled through the group, hearts thudding as the cave's silence pressed close. Then, like sparks of defiance, firewood lanterns ignited along the corridor, their flames casting flickering shadows across jagged walls and revealing the tunnel ahead in a warm, golden glow.
"It's remarkable what one can accomplish with magic," Levor's laughter cut through the stillness, sharp and arrogant. "Life would be so much easier with it, wouldn't it?"
June and Manir echoed his amusement with soft laughs, nodding in agreement.
"Freedom will eventually be our plaything," Manir added, his tone almost reverent.
"And our influence… incontestable!" June finished, her eyes glinting with ambition.
The others advanced down the corridor, their reactions muted. Levor, however, had already taken notice of Victoria—her gaunt frame, pallid skin, the weight of exhaustion clinging to her like a burden. A vulnerability he had no intention of overlooking.
"Hey! You!" he barked, ignoring her name.
All eyes turned toward him, confusion flickering across the group. Levor smirked at their bewilderment.
"Are you deaf? I'm talking to you, frail little thing!" he mocked.
Victoria did not answer. She kept walking, her eyes fixed ahead. But persistence was Levor's nature. With June and Manir flanking him, he closed the distance and encircled her.
The others watched in uneasy silence. This was no competition—the cave demanded none—yet Levor's intentions were clear.
"I'm curious, you know. What could someone like you hope to accomplish with magic?" he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. "You're not even fit for such a gift. Look at you… I could crush you with a finger. You're hardly different from a corpse."
They shoved her. Victoria struck the ground with a sickening thud; the impact split and drew blood along her temple. Laughter and jeers, from Levor and company, echoed through the cave as they continued their mockery, yet she uttered not a sound.
From the events leading to this point, Victoria's body had naturally entered a state beyond fear or pain—instinctive, precise. Her mind narrowed to a single, unyielding focus: to obtain magic and destroy her enemy. Everything else—the taunts, the pain, the humiliation—was nothing more than distractions along her path to annihilation.
Even so, something in her eyes betrayed the storm within. Deep hollows reflected a chaos almost perceivable—a dark vortex of intent and fury. Levor and his companions noticed it, and for the first time, their laughter faltered. That gaze, hollow yet burning, sent a chill through them.
Yet the bully trio, with Levor at their lead, could not accept the faintest hint of threat from one they considered a weakling.
"Who do you think you are staring at? Lower your eyes, or I'll gouge them out and beat you to a pulp if you don't obey!" he snapped, anger swelling in his chest. A trace of fear stirred within him, but pride would not allow it to surface.
Victoria, however, could not have cared less. She continued to glare at him and his companions, her eyes reflecting the full weight of her accumulated wrath. Unable to endure the silent defiance of someone he deemed beneath him, Levor moved to strike, seeking reassurance in violence that he was not intimidated by the fallen princess.
"When I'm done with you, you won't even dare look an infant in the eye!" he declared, drawing back his fist to "correct" her. Yet Victoria remained unmoved, her indifference only fuelling his irritation.
Luckily for Victoria, before Levor's punch could reach its target, its motion was halted. Another non-mage had intervened, stepping between them and shielding the fallen princess. It was Sigrid Shelter.
"Leave her alone!" she declared.
There was a contradiction in such defiance. Sigrid was hardly the most imposing person in the cave. Unlike Victoria, whose frailty came from deliberate starvation, Sigrid was simply a short and slender girl—one not even fully grown. That fact only irritated Levor further.
Levor, Manir, and June had always been bullies. Like all bullies, they nourished their illusion of strength by preying on those they judged weaker than themselves. But there was one thing they despised above all: defiance from the weak.
To them, a gazelle that ceased its flight and turned to face a lion was more than absurd—it was an affront. Such defiance implied a reversal of roles, prey daring to regard its predator as prey. A truth too heavy, too cruel to accept, for it whispered of a reality they dreaded: that they themselves might rank among the weakest beings to stain existence.
Fuelled by anger, Levor moved to shove Sigrid aside, but a detail about her caught his attention—too obvious to miss.
"Your ears… you're an elf!?" Levor exclaimed, visibly shocked.
"An elf!?" Manir and June echoed in disbelief.
The other non-mages were equally jolted. Elves were common in Utopia, and no honest person could claim ignorance of such a race. But in that instant, their surprise quickly shifted to another question entirely.
"Elves are supposed to be a race blessed by mana itself. Why are you here? Trying to be greedy, aren't you? The mana you were granted at birth wasn't enough, so you came for more!" Levor spat, frustration and anger lacing his voice.
"I would never do such a thing. I'm just like everyone else here—I am a non-mage. The blessing you speak of, I received none from birth!" Sigrid declared, her voice trembling with frustration as she shielded the panting Victoria behind her.
Silence settled for a moment after her words. Then the trio's anger faded, replaced by crooked smiles. Suddenly, they burst into unrestrained laughter, mocking her mercilessly.
"So, you're a failure!" Levor sneered.
"An elf without magic? What else could surprise me in this world?" Manir jeered.
"It's like a fish incapable of swimming!" June laughed, clutching her stomach.
"That's a good one, June!" Levor added as their laughter continued, their looming shadows falling over Sigrid and Victoria.
Tears welled in Sigrid's eyes.
In the south-eastern lands of Utopia—where resistance against one of the Triad of Chaos demanded strength—magic was indispensable, not only for battle but also for elven culture and tradition preservation. Yet she had been born without even the faintest spark of it. For that reason alone, she had lived her life as an outcast, a constant target of ridicule.
Upon joining the Agape cult's ceremony, Sigrid had finally encountered others like herself—non-mages. Being among them soothed her heart, reassuring her that she was not alone, not the anomaly her father had so often called her.
Unluckily for her, misfortune lurks in every corner of existence. Even among the lowest spheres of scums, some crown themselves kings of these wretched domains. The crushing thought that she might still have no place in the world saddened her deeply.
In truth, Sigrid had not intervened on Victoria's behalf because she believed herself stronger. She had acted instinctively. Though her mind struggled to grasp the situation to its full extent, her soul had already aligned with that of the fallen princess, recognising in her a reflection of the same misery she unfortunately dragged.
The bully trio ignored all of it—and even if they had noticed, they would not have cared. As their laughter continued, a voice suddenly thundered through the cave, too commanding to be ignored.
"Enough!"
All the non-mages turned toward the source, Levor and his companions first among them. They had every intention of punishing whoever dared interrupt their twisted amusement. But the thought vanished the moment they laid eyes on the one who had spoken.
It was the tallest and most physically imposing man among them—Haltor Kambos.
"The Agape cult gave us no precise instructions about how this ceremony is meant to unfold," Haltor said calmly as he stepped beside Sigrid and helped Victoria to her feet; she had collapsed to her knees, a broken rib from her earlier fall sending waves of pain through her body. "It must be a test to weigh our worth. But if we hope to earn anything from the goddess of love, then it seems only natural that we show love to ourselves first."
"Aren't you of the same opinion?" Haltor asked, fixing Levor, Manir, and June with a menacing stare. Though no aura surrounded him, the pressure he exuded was unmistakable to those it was meant to intimidate.
"Tch… let's go, guys. He isn't worth it," Levor muttered with a frustrated chuckle, turning away with his companions.
"Are you two alright?" Haltor asked them.
"Yes! Thank you very much, sir. I'm truly grateful!" Sigrid wiped her tears and bowed repeatedly.
"Don't mention it. You're overdoing it," Haltor replied with a shy smile, like a man unused to such gratitude.
Victoria, however, was panting heavily—not from exhaustion, but from her inability to express the burning rage within her. They had not only preyed on her but had also worsened her frail condition by breaking one of her ribs.
Her breathing carried a strange intensity, as though two presences shared the same body: the wounded child struggling to endure, and another—cold and hollow—watching through her eyes. Haltor noticed it immediately. He had seen that same gaze before, staring back at him from a mirror after the day his wife was kidnapped.
"Vengeance… It's the only answer. And this young woman is consumed by it," he thought with quiet sadness.
The group continued deeper into the cave until their path was blocked by an enormous archaic gate of dark green marble. Its surface was covered with carvings—an ancient script intertwined with depictions of historical events and figures. The gate held another peculiarity. Three statues surrounded it: one above, and two on either side.
The statue at the top depicted a weeping mother holding a healthy newborn in her arms. The one to the left showed another weeping woman, this time cradling a deformed child. The statue on the right also wept—but her arms were empty, no child resting within them.
All the non-mages were struck by the door's artistry, its craftsmanship rare and meticulous, but one reaction stood apart, that of Ezabel Belizath. Ever a devotee of beauty by her own self-centred standards, she fell to her knees before what she deemed a masterpiece beyond compare.
"This is beauty at its peak… straight from paradise!" she whispered, tears of awe streaking her cheeks, as if salvation itself had manifested in stone.
Levor, observing her in silent disbelief, thought to himself;
"What's wrong with this weird bitch?"
Though Ezabel's love of beauty was excessive, Levor had never possessed the slightest perception to recognise anything magnificent beyond his own reflection.
Nonetheless, the gate was no mere decoration—it barred the way, the sole threshold to the deeper sections of the cave. Each tried to discern a method to open it, but there was no lock, no mechanism, nothing obvious to manipulate.
"You were right, young man. The goddess of love is definitely testing us," Taro Maro said to Haltor, stepping forward cautiously toward the door.
"I'm afraid that until we uncover the secrets of these ruins, we won't be able to make it through," he added, carefully touching the door.
"Old man, you seem to be an expert in such things," Mathurin Bordeaux commented, his dry cough punctuating the unease in his throat. A respiratory illness, a lifelong companion that had plagued him since birth, was the reason he found himself far from home in this esoteric cave.
"You seem ill, young man. Call me Taro. And I'm not old!" Taro replied, a pinch of comic frustration in his voice.
"You're clearly an old man!" the group thought in unison, their faces contorting in exaggerated disbelief at Taro Maro's delusional protestations of youth.
A few feet away, another non-mage lingered. Clad in a black cloak and wearing a sloth mask, he had at first been mistaken for a member of the Agape cult by his fellow non-mages. From the beginning, he had been peculiar; his form twitched subtly, as if stretching from within. The others didn't notice, distracted by their own movements, yet he could not escape the keen vigilance of Leir Nevron—a prodigy even without magic.