After we entered the forest, nothing happened following that brief shimmer from moments before.
*Must have been my imagination.*
Balrod and I walked side by side, trading idle conversation.
"Where are you going after graduation?"
"Not sure. Apparently the northern territories have been hiring mages in droves lately. Thinking I might head that way."
"You're not going back to your domain?"
"Not right away, probably. There are plenty of people to lead the domain besides me."
Balrod spoke without any particular weight to his words.
The guys I'd met back in the day, who hadn't seemed to have a thought in their heads—one by one, they were all finding their place.
It was a strange feeling. Bittersweet, somehow.
"Everyone's heading their own way."
"Yeah. Time really flies."
There was still plenty of time left, but once graduation came, we'd scatter to every corner of the continent.
Some back to the hometowns they'd grown up in, others to places they'd never been.
Even knowing the parting was inevitable, thinking about it still left a hollow feeling. Couldn't help it, I supposed.
Because in the end, these were people I'd grown fond of.
Balrod opened his mouth as if something had just occurred to him.
"You know what? Ross is actually pretty sentimental—he hates when that kind of topic comes up."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Last time I brought it up when you weren't around, he suddenly got dead serious and said, 'I'm definitely writing letters. No matter what.'"
God, just imagining it made me want to gag.
The thought of Ross pulling that solemn face while writing letters gave me chills.
"I told him to cut the nonsense and buy us a meal at the cafeteria while we're still here, and his expression changed pretty fast."
We were somewhere in the middle of that pointless conversation, patrolling through the forest.
"This forest really is massive."
Thirty minutes of walking.
The forest still showed no sign of ending, and even Balrod let out a quiet sound of admiration.
As he said, the deeper we went, the trees grew far larger and more imposing than those near the entrance, packed densely together.
"What was this place even used for, that the whole forest ended up being part of the academy?"
His genuine curiosity made me tilt my head in agreement.
The academy was enormous, and its history was long—there were buildings and structures from eras so distant that people like us had no knowledge of them at all.
"I don't know the details, but I vaguely heard that when the academy was first built, a very long time ago, they used this place for experiments. Alchemy, that sort of thing."
Before magic had been systematized, the forest itself had apparently served as a laboratory—I'd heard something like that once, but it wasn't reliable information.
*Rustle—*
A presence stirred in the quiet forest, and we both stopped.
"Didn't you hear something clanking?"
Balrod silently nodded at my words.
We focused on the sound for a moment, then moved carefully toward it.
*Clank—*
We turned our heads toward the direction the sound came again.
Men in lightweight chainmail were standing by, talking among themselves.
"Academy guards."
The ones called guards, or sentries.
"Should we go over?"
Balrod looked at me at my suggestion.
"Do we need to?"
"It's not like we run into them often. Just this once."
At that, Balrod shrugged and fell into step behind me.
The guards who'd been chatting while on standby instinctively gripped their swords with their right hands at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Balrod and I both flinched reflexively, but the man at the front looked us over and raised a closed fist.
"Stand down. They're students."
At that, the guards naturally stood down, and the lead guard walked over and removed his helmet.
"On patrol?"
"Yes, sir."
The guard looked us over with his eyes and gave a nod.
"Sorry for the sudden alert. Name's Rotwell. I'm currently the 3rd squad leader of the academy guards."
He clasped his hands together in greeting.
"I'm Rutess. This is Balrod."
Rotwell nodded at the brief introduction and looked us both over.
"Third years, both of you?"
"That's right."
At that, Rotwell glanced back briefly, and the guards all nodded in unison.
*Something's going on.*
Rotwell cleared his throat and looked at us.
"Could you two help us out for a moment?"
The sudden request made Balrod and me exchange a glance.
"…Could you tell us what it involves?"
Balrod asked carefully, and Rotwell nodded.
"As you might expect, we're knights by training, so magic is completely beyond us. We found an artifact over there, and we'd like to know roughly what it is."
An artifact.
"…An artifact?"
"That's right. Ah, of course we can tell it's no ordinary thing, so we've been keeping our distance with a full perimeter. We've already sent for someone—I just thought it'd be good to have a rough idea before the academy's people arrive."
His explanation was that they'd found an unidentified artifact and had taken appropriate measures.
"What do you think?"
Balrod asked for my opinion.
The perimeter was thorough, and they'd already sent for help, so someone from the academy was likely on their way.
There didn't seem to be any particular threat.
"Let's go take a look."
My affirmative answer made Rotwell smile with satisfaction.
"Thank you for your time."
Rotwell turned and walked ahead, and we followed.
*First time actually talking to the guards.*
The academy guards were always stationed on the outer perimeter, given that their job was to protect the academy.
Unless there was a specific reason, they were always posted outside, so encounters with students were almost nonexistent—and even when they did happen, it was only from a distance.
Actually meeting and talking with them like this was a rare experience in itself.
Up close, the guards moved with the disciplined economy of professionally trained soldiers.
*But they really don't know magic.*
Probably meaning they had no specialized knowledge of it.
With those idle thoughts drifting through my head, I followed Rotwell for a few more minutes.
We arrived at a clear lakeside.
"…Oh."
Maybe it was because we'd been walking through nothing but dense forest—
The open view of the lake felt like it cleared something that had been pressing on my chest.
*…Elline would love this place.*
The thought came to me out of nowhere.
"This way."
We followed where Rotwell led.
At the edge of the lake.
Five guards were maintaining a circular perimeter there.
And at the center of that circle sat an artifact that practically had *"I am extremely suspicious"* written all over it.
Its size was roughly that of a box large enough for one person to fit inside.
Rotwell stepped forward, and the guards on watch quietly stepped aside. We moved closer and began to examine it.
A fairly large artifact.
The question of why it was here in the first place was secondary.
"Was it here when you first found it?"
At Balrod's question, Rotwell nodded.
"The moment we found it, I had the guards surround it. We haven't touched it."
Rotwell said it with a confident voice, having followed procedure to the letter.
Seeing the artifact up close, the scene from just before we'd entered the forest suddenly came back to me.
"Balrod."
"Yeah."
"Actually, right before we entered the forest, I saw the whole forest shimmer."
"Did you?"
"Yeah. It was so brief I brushed it off."
Balrod nodded at my words as if confirming something.
It had been an extremely fleeting shimmer, but now I was certain.
It had been the movement of mana—more precisely, a wave that mana had produced.
"The forest shimmered?"
Rotwell asked with curiosity.
"More precisely, my field of vision shimmered. Mana can be sensitive sometimes, and this kind of thing happens."
"Hmm… I see. We can't perceive mana ourselves, so there's no way we'd know."
"It doesn't happen often for us either. Very rarely, by chance."
"When does it happen?"
"Various situations. It could be a natural phenomenon, or when a powerful spell is released, or…"
"Or?"
"When a high-output artifact is activated."
My calm declaration ended, and a cool breeze blew across the lakeside.
"…What?"
Rotwell asked in a dumbfounded voice, and I continued.
"Even when this kind of shimmer is visible, it's usually coincidence, so people let it go. But seeing this artifact, I can't rule out the possibility. Someone may have already activated it once—or possibly more than once."
"Wh—what do you mean by that…"
"And… if I had to guess, judging by this artifact and its size…"
Artifacts are made according to their purpose, so after seeing enough of them, you can get a rough sense of what a given one is meant to do.
Having handled a countless number of artifacts in our second year, we already had a few theories forming.
"In all likelihood, it's probably a teleportation artifact."
Teleportation.
Rotwell swallowed dryly.
"Teleportation…?"
"Yes. That's purely speculation. We can't reactivate it here, so the specialists from the academy will need to confirm it when they arrive—but that's how it looks to us."
"Wait, wait—you said it may have already been used?"
Balrod nodded.
"That's only a possibility. There are plenty of other reasons for a shimmer besides an artifact."
"But if it was used? How was it used? What for? Going out, or coming in?"
Rotwell pressed with an increasingly urgent voice.
If this artifact had been used—and if it had been used to come *in* here—
That would mean someone whose identity was unverified had already entered.
For the guards, it was an extremely unsettling piece of news.
"We're not sure either. It may not be a teleportation artifact at all. As I said, the only way to know for certain is to activate it. But right now, we're just students, and we don't have the expertise to handle artifacts…"
"…R-right."
Rotwell calmed himself and nodded.
While Balrod and Rotwell were talking, a thought occurred to me.
Outside, the guards were keeping a thorough watch, and the unmanned security was equally strict.
*…To place an artifact like this here.*
It would come to light later, but one thing was certain—there was no way to interpret this other than someone inside the academy having deliberately placed it here.
*Who.*
Who on earth had put this here?
If I started pulling at that thread, it felt like it would unravel endlessly.
"…Understood. Then, as you say, all we can do for now is wait."
Rotwell nodded, then looked back and forth between the two of us once more.
"And… could you keep this quiet for now?"
No point in stirring up unnecessary trouble, and it wouldn't do for things to get noisy inside the academy either.
Rotwell's judgment was sound.
"Of course."
"Naturally."
"Good. Thank you."
Rotwell thanked us once more after hearing our answers.
With even that brief investigation concluded, we had to head back, and we walked quickly along the path we'd come.
By the time we reached the academy, the sun had climbed to the very top of the sky, as if marking noon.
"What do you think?"
At my question, Balrod answered evenly.
"…Well. Can't rule out the possibility of an intruder."
An intruder.
Just thinking about it made my head ache.
What could anyone possibly gain from infiltrating a facility for training talent?
"It's not something we need to deal with, so I'm not going to worry too much about it."
He added that and looked at me.
"So. What was your favor?"
"Oh, right."
The patrol was over, so now it was time to bring up my request.
"…It's nothing major."
"Go on."
I looked at Balrod and said it.
"I'm entering the Spring Festival Tournament. Come with me."
"…The Spring Festival Tournament?"
"Yeah."
His expression shifted ever so slightly, as if it were somewhat unexpected—but then he crossed his arms and looked at me with interest.
"Out of nowhere? You never cared about it before."
"I do now. A whole lot."
Entirely against my will, I'd come to care about it enormously.
He looked at me in silence.
As if weighing something.
"Rutess."
"Yeah."
"I told you before why I don't enter competitions, didn't I?"
"Because you're afraid you'll end up fighting with your teammates?"
The reason Balrod had never been interested in competitions was, in the end, that he didn't want to lose his temper in a team-based event.
"That's right. You know me well enough—I may not be serious about much, but competition is something I do properly."
"I know that."
At my words, Balrod slowly uncrossed his arms and rolled his shoulders.
"I could end up fighting with you too."
"…"
"I mean it. When I enter a competition, winning is the only goal."
He probably didn't want to lose his temper with me either—but.
"I'm prepared for that."
I was prepared.
Balrod stared into my eyes for a long moment, then slowly smiled.
"Have your magic skills improved much?"
"A lot more than last time, haven't they?"
More than the past two years combined—I did think I'd grown considerably more now.
"Let's see."
"See what?"
Balrod tilted his head.
Where he was pointing was the dome-shaped training arena visible in the distance.
"Your skills."
In short, he was saying: let's have a round.