Duelcrest Academy

«I can't take it anymore...»

I buried my face into the blankets of the infirmary bed.

Amy chuckled a bit, after all it was not the first time she'd heard me utter those words.

I lifted my gaze and weakly smiled at her.

It seemed like she was finally regaining her strength.

Ten days had passed since she had been attacked and she had spent most of them lying on that bed, enveloped in the bluish light of an enchantment that slowly restored the mana that had been stolen from her.

The treatment had shown immediate results and Amy's condition was improving steadily. It seemed like the healers knew their stuff.

It looked like she would soon be able to return to attend classes.

Luckily, before being attacked, she had been in a fairly secure position in the rankings but, during her recovery, her lead over the lower positions had gotten thinner.

"We'll need to do something about it..."

Dueling was prohibited in the infirmary. However, the recent events had made me realize how lax the Academy's rules were.

For this reason, I spent as much time as possible with her, to prevent any ill-intentioned person from taking advantage of her moment of weakness.

Or at least, that was the main reason I was there. Lately most of my time in the infirmary was spent dozing off on the chair next to my friend's bed.

Amy turned serious and gave me a stern look:

«You're exhausted, you two really should not overdo it. Why don't you talk to her about it?» she reproached.

«No, no... it's fine» I replied weakly, shaking my head.

The reason for my recent lack of energy were the sleepless nights I spent with Sophia, patrolling the hallways of the school.

After dinner, when all the students retired to their rooms, the two of us sneaked out, aided by the darkness, to ensure we caught the killer in the act. Our watch usually lasted until the early hours of the morning.

This left me with only a few hours of sleep before classes began.

Of course, with the points I had, I could've easily skipped them and used that time to rest.

But now that Sophia had finally decided to cooperate with me, even if out of necessity, I had no intention of showing her any sign of weakness.

"How weak! I let you tag along and you're in this state for a little lack of sleep?"

I could already imagine her spitting out those words while glaring at me with her air of superiority.

That's why I decided to put up with it without complaining.

Of course, I would have endured everything much more willingly if we actually got anything out of it.

I wasn't surprised that, so far, our nightly patrols hadn't yielded results. After the failed attack against Amy, it wasn't strange that the killer was laying low.

It would've probably taken some time before they regained the confidence to strike again.

All we could do was wait, lurking in the shadows, without letting them suspect that we were hunting them.

However, I had hoped that our temporary alliance would at least give me the opportunity to get to know Sophia a little bit better . But even in this case, no luck.

Sophia had immediately forbidden me from approaching her during the day. According to her, it was necessary to keep our partnership secret.

If we had suddenly started interacting, right after my best friend was attacked, the killer might have suspected that we were working together to catch them.

Unfortunately, I hadn't found a good way to contradict her.

Even at night, I hadn't been successful in improving our relationship. After all we couldn't chat much when sneaking around the school or we would have alerted the culprit.

Nevertheless, I had no intention of giving up.

Amy seemed resigned at my refusal.

«Then try to get some sleep now at least, I'll wake you up when it's time for evening classes.»

Although I was the visitor, I spent the rest of the afternoon dozing off while Amy watched over me.

«How is she?»

«EEK?!»

It had been a couple of hours since Sophia and I had been wandering around the school enveloped in darkness.

Sophia allmost never spoke to me during our patrols so when she whispered right into my ear, I couldn't help but let out a surprised squeal.

Just like ten days ago, Sophia quickly covered my mouth with her hand.

«Are you crazy?!» she hissed, throwing an angry glare after releasing me.

«Sorry, you scared me...»

«So? How is Amy? I've noticed you spend a lot of time in the infirmary. Is everything okay?»

«Yes, she's much better. I think she could be out next week.»

«I looked at the leaderboard today. It looks like she'll need to work hard to gain points once she gets out, so I was thinking...» she paused for a moment, «how about you and I challenge her every day and we lose on purpose? That should get her back into a safe position quickly and we can affor-.. Why are you looking at me like that?»

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, after all she had helped Amy before. But it was kinda strange that someone that prideful would be willing to lose a duel, even if on purpose.

«Are you still feeling guilty?» I asked her, «I've already told you that-»

«I don't care what you think,» Sophia snapped, turning her face away, «I allways do what I think is right. See it as a way to repay the help you're giving me. Then we'll be even again.»

Technically there was still the matter of her saving my life. But I decided not to insist.

«As you wish,» I replied, «but don't you think cooperating could be a good idea in the future too? As you can see, there are things that even you can't do alone.»

«Mmpf...»

«Don't "mmpf" me. Should I go to bed then? Are you going to follow that mana flow alone?» I teased her.

Sophia turned her head away again.

"Oh oh!"

«Maybe I should really go... Unless you can say ple-»

I didn't manage to finish the sentence.

Sophia once again covered my mouth with her hand.

That was kinda of an excessive reaction! I was just joking after all.

But when I tried to express some muffled complaints, she put a finger in front of her mouth, ordering me to stay silent.

After a moment, I understood why she had shushed me.

In the deep silence enveloping the school, I clearly heard the sound of a door closing.

Someone had left their room.

At the moment, we were lurking in one of the west wing's hallways, on the ground floor. The sound was close. It was undoubtedly a student.

During all these days of waiting, no one had ever taken a nighttime stroll. After all, who would be so foolish to do so with a killer at large?

If someone was out of bed, it was definetly suspicious.

Sophia nodded to me and together we slipped along the wall until we could peek around the nearest corner.

There was no doubt, the footsteps we heard were heading in our direction. From the noise, whoever it was didn't seem to intend to be stealthy.

«It's coming this way,» whispered Sophia, «we can't stay here, we should go ahead an-»

But I had an idea. Trailing them from behind would be much easier.

I grabbed Sophia's wrist and pulled her towards me.

«What are you d-»

This time I was the one that covered her mouth. With my other hand, I drew my wand and aimed it at one of the closets decorating the corridor we were in.

«Duplicate,» I whispered, shifting the wand's tip towards the ground at our feet. From nothingness, wooden walls formed around us, hiding us from view.

Thanks to the darkness it was unlikely that someone would notice an extra closet.

Sophia seemed to startle from surprise. I quickly let go of her, but despite that, we remained very close, enclosed in that narrow space.

I could feel her breath tickling my neck.

I was glad that in the dark I couldn't really see her face. She was definetly mad at me for acting so impulsively.

We could do nothing but wait, pressed against each other, until we heard the footsteps getting closer. We both held our breath as the mysterious person passed by the closet, unaware of our presence.

Then the footsteps grew fainter. The student was heading towards the entrance.

When we were sure they had gone far enough, we jumped out.

«Yep... you're fucking crazy. But... good job I guess,» Sophia commented, panting slightly.

It was rare to get a compliment from her.

«Thanks... but let's hurry.»

Quickly, but making sure not to make noise, we hurried towards our target.

It was when we arrived at the entrance hall that, thanks to the torches illuminating it brightly, we could finally see who it was. He was a boy of medium height with a mane of light brown hair, neatly combed back. Since I couldn't see his face, I wasn't sure who he was, but he looked familiar...

«Isn't that the dude that asked you out on the first day?,» Sophia whispered to me, in the light of the entrance I could see she was smirking.

«Oh...»

Of course! I would've rather removed that memory. That noble guy had challenged me with the intention of making me his girlfriend. Was he callled like... Von...Something.

I couldn't remember.

But his name wasn't important. What the hell was he doing out of bed at this hour?

He certainly wasn't the killer, otherwise he wouldn't have walked through the school with such nonchalance, without worrying about being discovered.

We continued to tail him towards the east wing of the building. The boy didn't seem to worry about being followed, but we still tried to make as little noise as possible. It was essential that, if the killer was lurking somewhere, they wouldn't see us coming.

Finally, we reached the classroom corridor.

The boy stopped in front of the door to the inner courtyard and entered, closing it behind him.

Training at night, perhaps? Unlikely.

But this was a huge issue: now that there was a door separating us, we had no way of continuing to observe him. Opening it would've revealed our presence.

I started thinking of a solution.

I definetly wasn't capable of making myself see through walls.

I had recently read about a spell capable of making me intangible so I could pass through one, but I had never really tried it with more than my hand, so it would've been way too risky to use it in this situation.

What if I got stuck in the middle of the wall? Sophia would've certainly gotten a kick out of it.

I looked at her.

She also seemed unsure of what to do. Her power wasn't really usefull in a situation like this.

«Fuck!» she muttered, biting her lip.

But after a moment, she seemed to make up her mind.

«We have to go in, quick!» she exclaimed, no longer bothering to keep her voice low. And in a flash, she dashed towards the inner courtyard.

«A-are y-you s-sure?» I gasped, panting behind her.

«If the killer is waiting for him in there, we can't just stand here doing nothing!»

When she reached the door, Sophia pushed it open with force.

We were faced with a horrible scene.

The boy's body, illuminated by the unnatural light of the courtyard, lay sprawled on the ground. There was no trace left of the good-looking young man I remembered meeting. What we had in front of us resembled more of a skeleton.

Not one, but two of those horrible bugs were feasting on what remained of that poor boy.

Sophia, fast like lightning, drew her sword and lunged at one of those creatures, splitting it in half with a single strike. As its glowing abdomen was ripped open, the insect emitted a violent glare before suddenly vanishing.

In the meantime, I drew my wand and froze the other creature with precision.

Sophia hurried to the victim's body.

«Just in time... He's still alive. We need to get him to the infirmary right away. In the meantime, see if you can follow the mana flow of that thi-... Elizabeth?!»

It was too late, I had already rushed out of the courtyard.

I heard Sophia screaming my name behind me.

"I hope you can forgive me..."

I had thought about it many times during the sleepless nights we had spent together, but the scene I had just witnessed had finally led me to make that decision.

I couldn't allow Sophia to face the killer.

Sure, it was stupid of me to worry about her.

After all ,with a power so insane at her disposal she was unlikely to risk anything.

However, her duel with Valentine had shown me that she could also misjudge things.

What if she made a mistake? Maybe the killer had some tricks up their sleeve or would set us up. And then... everything would happen so quickly. The little mana she had would be drained in a matter of seconds and her life would vanish in the blink of an eye.

That power was pretty much the perfect weapon against someone with very low magic power like Sophia.

But I wouldn't give them a chance to use it against her. This time I would protect her, whether she wanted it or not.

I ran through the school corridors, following the mana flow I had felt linking the familiar to its creator. It was coming from the west wing.

Was the killer safe in their room?

"In that case, I'll have to go back to Sophia to make her break down the door," I thought, biting my lip.

But it wasn't the case.

The flow led me to a corridor full of rooms, but it didn't seem to come from any of them. I had to stop my chase.

A dead end. In front of me was a solid wall.

"Fuck!"

There was no doubt, whoever was controlling those creatures was behind it. I felt the wall with my hands. It wasn't an illusion, it was perfectly firm.

Was there a secret passage somewhere?

I could already feel the mana flow fading away, soon the killer's traces would disappear.

I had to act now.

"Should I try to blow it up?"

I would have preferred to catch the murderer by surprise. There was also the possibility that the wall was protected by a spell, like the doors to our rooms.

I took a deep breath, preparing for the worst.

I decided to take the risk. I drew my wand and aimed it at myself.

«Phase shift,» I whispered.

I shuddered.

It was as if my body had been immersed in icy water. I looked at my hands: they had a pearly color, almost transparent.

The spell had worked.

I didn't have time to waste.

With all determination I could muster, I walked towards the wall and, without looking back, I went through it.