Chapter 3: Academia Upper School ①

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Three years go by fast.

I stood in the spring sunlight and looked up at the massive building.

Academia Upper School. The highest institution for training Xenographs—the mages who kept humanity alive—and the place where the best young fighters came to prove they deserved that title.

The white buildings were far grander than anything I remembered from Lower School. Past the main gate, a wide courtyard opened up, stone paths fanning out from a central fountain. Several wings stretched beyond it.

I’d finally made it back as a Xenograph.

My connection to the girls hadn’t been severed completely. That first year after we parted, there were a handful of chances to meet in person. Letters went back and forth regularly, and I could feel them growing just from the way they wrote.

Then, about a year and a half ago, everything changed.

The Pillars of Hell had started generating again. Monster activity was spiking. They were being pulled into extermination missions more and more often—Middle School students, deployed to the front lines because they were simply that capable. Any chance of meeting in person dried up. All we had left were letters.

In this world, the telegraph runs on military priority. Using it for personal reasons requires authorization, and every message gets read. It wasn’t built for private conversation—which is why handwritten letters are still the norm.

Those letters had gone quiet, too.

Maybe the missions had gotten too intense to write. Or maybe—

It had been almost a year since the last one arrived.

I shook that off and stepped through the main gate. Other new students were streaming in around me, their faces somewhere between excited and terrified.

The black uniforms had two different stripe colors.

Red stripes. Full-status Xenographs who’d come up through Lower and Middle School—fighters with actual battlefield records. Elites, every one of them.

Blue stripes. Outside candidates entering at the Upper School level. People without a record yet. People are still working toward becoming a Xenograph.

My stripes were, of course, blue.

I found the registration desk near the main entrance. A short line of students was already waiting.

“Next, please.”

My turn came. The clerk looked up from her paperwork and checked my face.

“Zerovalt, correct? Congratulations on your enrollment in the Cadet Program.”

“Thank you.”

“Here’s your dormitory key and student ID. You’ll be in East Wing, third floor, Room 302.”

A silver key and a photo ID. The card read: Cadet Program.

Cadet. Not a full Xenograph yet—more like a provisional license. If I couldn’t earn a professional certification before graduation, that path would close for good.

That was my standing, for now.

“Any questions?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I gripped the key and left the desk.

Walking the corridor, I felt eyes on me. Some of the faces I passed were familiar—classmates from Lower School. People I’d trained alongside, fought alongside.

They walked right by.

White hair. A prosthetic frame where my left eye used to be. A gloved prosthetic where my left hand used to be. Even someone who’d known me three years ago probably wouldn’t recognize me now.

I thought about calling out. Decided against it.

I didn’t know what I’d even say.

Through the corridor windows, the courtyard spread out below. Xenographs were sparring out there—Magiacraft flaring and clashing, steel ringing against steel. Every movement was clean, deliberate. These were people who had seen real combat. You could always tell.

The red stripes caught the sunlight.

Once, I had been on that side. Fighting monsters on the front lines as a Lower School student, before any of this.

Now I was the inexperienced one—a cadet, starting over.

That was fine. It was the most I could do right now.

Cheering broke out somewhere ahead as I headed toward the dorms.

I followed the noise. A connecting walkway overlooked the courtyard, and a crowd had pressed against the railing.

“They’re back!”

“God, those three are something.”

Students craned to see. I found a gap and looked down.

My heart jumped.

Three figures stood at the courtyard entrance.

Silver hair with red highlights, loose and wolf-cut, catching the light.

Long black hair falling in easy waves.

Soft pink hair gathered into a high half-twin style.

Three years older. More beautiful for it.

Lunamiris. Nephiliza. Rizeletta.

The people I’d come back to find.

They’d just returned from a mission. Black uniforms, red stripes—proof of everything they’d built while I was gone. Each carried her weapon: Luna with a bow slung across her back, Nephi gripping a double-ended war staff, Rize with a sword at her hip. There wasn’t a gap in how they held themselves. Battle-hardened, down to the stillness.

The students around them stared.

Most of those looks were admiration—the pure, uncomplicated kind. These three were Middle School graduates who had already seen real combat, and the whole Upper School seemed to know it.

Not everyone looked admiringly.

A few faces nearby were tight with something uglier. Jealousy, maybe. Or the bruised pride that comes from watching girls younger than you walk in already ahead.

“…Another grand entrance from the heroes,” someone muttered.

“We’ll catch up. Give it time.”

“Luck. That’s all it was.”

Low voices, barely audible. They reached me anyway.

The girls themselves seemed oblivious—or at least, they were pretending to be. No. Not pretending. More like they felt it and just had no idea what to do with it.

“Has anyone else noticed how much everyone’s staring?” Luna muttered, her brow creasing.

“Y-yeah… it’s kind of scary…”

Nephi tried to make herself smaller between the other two. She’d grown—easily past 180 centimeters now—but she was doing her best to hide behind their backs anyway.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rize said, even and flat. Nothing moved in her expression, but her fingers had found the hem of her uniform and were gripping it tight. An old habit. She was nervous.

They moved quickly through the courtyard. No waves for admirers, no acknowledgment of the noise. Just wanting out.

They didn’t want this—the hero treatment, the resentment. They just wanted to fight monsters and protect people. That was the whole of it.

I watched from the second-floor walkway.

They were dazzling.

Three years ago, we had fought on the same battlefield and survived the same near-deaths together.

But right now, they were somewhere I couldn’t reach.

“I’ll be back in three years. I promise.”

That was what I’d said, in the hospital room, the day we parted. Those words were still carved into me. A promise that mattered.

But for them?

Three years is a long time when you’re that young. They had fought in countless battles, met people I’d never known, lived a life I’d only ever heard about in letters.

Two years since I last saw them—one year since the last letter.

Maybe they’d forgotten what I said.

Maybe, even if they hadn’t, it was just a childhood memory by now—something soft and faded, not a real promise anymore.

But that was okay.

It was a promise I’d made to myself, as much as to them.

I looked at them one last time, let the image settle, and turned away.