When Talon finished packing his bags, he left his room. Someone waited immediately outside to intercept him.
"Goren tells me you're still on Voice One in the world," the figure challenged. "Why does he want me to infiltrate this academy? And don't you already have Anonymous there? I know he's not the most ideal person, but why do I have to be there? Do you want me to keep him in check or something?"
Goren's smile cut like a blade. "No, Talon. I want you at the academy to hunt for anomalous people—to sniff out any strange occurrences. Of course, you'll need time, and you'll report back to me monthly with your findings." His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "And about the other thing—listen closely. Anonymous is dead."
"Better late than never, huh?" Talon's words dripped with indifference, dismissing Anonymous's life as if it were nothing.
"I was expecting it," Goren said, his smile widening. This was exactly the reaction he'd anticipated.
"Anyway, come with me. I'll take you to the academy."
"Exactly how are you going to do that?" Talon's eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Goren held his gaze for a long moment before looking away. "Teleportation. Someone I know has teleportation magic and can easily get you there."
"All right then. Take me to him."
"There's no need for that. I'll go get him." Goren walked off, leaving Talon seething.
Talon stormed back into his room and threw himself onto his bed. Nearly everything was spotless—all his clothes and essentials packed inside a large suitcase, including all the books he owned. The candle on his nightstand beside the button he used to communicate remained in place, both unmoved. *I think that's all I need. Now all I have to do is wait.*
After a few minutes, a knock rattled his door. Talon sprang from his bed and yanked it open. He wasn't expecting anyone who looked particularly impressive, and his expectations proved accurate—the man was average in build, average in height, average in everything.
"My name is—well, I went to school as my name," the man stammered, "but Goren asked me to teleport you to the academy. I'm sure you'll figure out what to do when I teleport you."
Talon nodded curtly. "Great."
He moved beside his suitcase and waited. The man extended his hand, palm facing both the suitcase and Talon himself. He began to mutter something unintelligible, and then the ground vanished. Talon plummeted through it.
Meanwhile, Arthur jolted awake. This time it wasn't the middle of the night or the early morning—it was nearly 10:00 AM. Arthur's eyes flew open wide. His roommates had vanished, and he had classes to attend.
"What? When did I—how did I—" He panicked for a moment, then forced himself to calm down. His biggest priority wasn't making it to class on time—in fact, that ranked among the least of his worries—but it still gnawed at him. He leaped up, dressed quickly without bothering to eat, then burst out the dorm room door and sprinted down the hall.
"All right, students, today we will be learning the history of magic," the professor announced. "Magic has a long history, and it is very complicated. Not only are we going to study the history of magic itself, we're going to examine the history of the goddess Wayne—her rise, her intervention, and her defeat of death. I want all of you to grab your notebooks and take notes. This is very complicated, so you will need notes for this lesson, and if you're still lost, I'll make sure to—"
BAM! The door flew open and slammed against the wall. By recoil, it swung shut. Arthur stood there, breathing hard, sweat streaming down his face.
Arthur Kai was the first to react. He shot to his feet, wearing normal casual clothing instead of his usual red armor and gauntlets. "When did you get here?"
"All right, you just got here. My bad—I tried to wake you up, man. Sit down," the student beside him muttered.
Kai whirled on him, glaring. "Since when did you tell me what to do?"
Kai sat down anyway, and Arthur stalked toward the only available seat in the class and dropped into it.
"Like I was saying," the professor continued, his tone sharp with irritation, "our first lesson will be the history of magic. Our second lesson will be, as I said, the rise and fall of the goddess Wayne."
"First, we're going to start with magic."
Eons ago, a man was born. At the time, no one else possessed magic, and no one even knew what it was—our planet hadn't even formed yet. This person still resembled a human. His name was simply Morrow.
Morrow was a strong human, but when he was first born, some people from his planet conducted tests on him. They performed these tests because they witnessed Morrow do strange things—things that wouldn't seem strange to us now, but before magic existed, they were extraordinary. Morrow began to fly and fire beams from his hands when he was only nearly four years old. When he turned five, some people performed assessments on him. They discovered something strange in his body—his DNA wasn't exactly correct.
Of course, since magic didn't exist yet, they didn't know what to call it. In fact, they couldn't even label it. Their technology, which was far beyond ours, couldn't even detect what this was, but they knew something flowed within the child.
That something branded him an outcast. He was bullied by other kids his age because he wasn't exactly normal. Because of all the bullying, he developed a dark attitude—not a violent one, but a cold personality. He remained different and indifferent to all the bullying. No matter how hard the bullies tried, no matter how hard anyone tried, they couldn't make Morrow cry.
Until the day.
When Morrow came home from school one day, he expected to see his parents there to greet him. They were the only ones who didn't see their son as a freak or anything of the sort. He was just expecting to have a normal day. But when he came home, his parents weren't there.
All that remained was blood. Just puddles of blood.
That was the first time Morrow actually cried.