Chương 56: Ch.55— A Familiar Ceiling

One moment, the black rain was hammering against their umbrellas as they walked through the frozen wasteland, and the next, they were standing in the circular stone chamber with the carved symbols and the archway behind them. The umbrellas had dissolved the moment they crossed the archway threshold and exited the Nightmare.

Contrary to how they entered, they had left without holding hands; the fear of being transported to different places was no longer there, and even if it were, Amy doubted any of those in Crow's group would want to touch the ones who voted to kill his father… Amy stood for a moment in the chamber and looked at the others. They had all been reduced to varying degrees of exhaustion—leaning against walls and pillars, collapsed onto the floor, or forcing themselves to stay upright through sheer effort.

Only Lyra still moved, slowly examining Crow's ruined arm with a weary expression. Crow himself was sitting, staring at the archway with an emotionless face. Then, after reassuring Lyra that he was fine, he got up, turned toward the corridor ahead, and silently started to walk. Amy looked at him for a few seconds before she began following, and so did the others. Not walking, trudging. Her boots were dragging slightly on the flagstones.

She stopped noticing it after a few minutes of forcing herself to keep going and not fall asleep. Nobody spoke the entire way, making the passage feel longer than it had been when they were going in. They were the same candles, the same stone, but the journey through it had a particular quality that Amy could only describe as grueling. Actually, was it just a few minutes? Amy genuinely couldn't tell.

Time had stopped behaving like a reliable concept somewhere around the fourth hour of fighting chaos creatures, and it didn't appear to have recovered. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other and tried not to think about anything at all. Amy suddenly felt like she could understand what people who had almost died and then come back to life meant by" light at the end of the tunnel."

That was currently how it felt to her, like she'd been asleep through this entire ordeal, one step away from dying, before being lucky enough to be resuscitated. -————-　■　-————- There, at the end of the passage, was light. The others probably felt a similar way because, just like her, they started walking faster. It took them a couple of minutes, but they eventually reached the light. Everyone stood at the edge of the passage.

The office beyond, lit by the orange light characteristic of mornings streaming through the curtained windows, was just as it was when they left—with the only difference being a person who, yes, had been there before, but was now in a completely different condition. Seated in the chair behind the massive desk, her head tipped back at an angle that suggested deep sleep, was Headmistress Elyndra.

Her silver hair was partially loose, a blanket had been pulled up to her chin, and a cold cup of something sat at the corner of the desk. She looked completely at peace, in stark contrast to the crazy, unhinged, blood-mimicking Elyndra they had seen during the Nightmare. The group stared at one another, as if wondering if they should wake the headmistress up. But then, as if reading their thoughts, a painting fell off the wall. It dropped with surprising speed and precision right onto the headmistress's head.

Elyndra woke in an instant, reminding Amy of the countless cat videos she used to watch back in her original world: she jumped from her chair, and her hair seemed to have gone completely straight.

"Absolute infernal demon. I told you to stop doing that!" she said, looking toward the painting now on the ground.

"If you think that this constitutes a reasonable working relationship, I want you to know that I am revising my opinion of you downward—and that is saying something, because I did not—" She suddenly paused, then frowned. Then she turned left. The seven students stood in her office in various states of devastation, looking at her. Elyndra looked at them silently. She observed the blood, the torn clothing, the postures of people held vertical by pure stubbornness, and the arm that was no longer there.

She looked at all of it with a frown that deepened steadily as her gaze traveled from one to the next, pausing occasionally. Then she turned to the painting on the floor. She picked it up and looked at it. The painting of an old woman stared back at her directly. Only then did Amy realize that it was Azazel—because obviously, it was her. Why hadn't she thought of it sooner?

"Why," Elyndra said to the painting in a surprisingly calm tone, "are they like this?" Time passed following the question. Whatever the painting communicated—and it seemed to communicate something, based on the way Elyndra's frown shifted and adjusted—she processed it with small nods. The explanation seemed to take a long time. Elyndra just stood there as the students watched her, occasionally lifting an eyebrow, tightening the corner of her mouth, or briefly shifting her gaze toward Crow before looking away.

"Mm," she said. Then: "Mm." Then she went completely still, and her expression transformed into shock.

"Abaddon," she said quietly, making Crow flinch.

"Why didn't you tell me, demon…? Even if I had to break my own contract and go mad, I would have…" She seemed to continue her conversation with the painting through inaudible mutterings for another moment, then finally picked the painting back up and set it against the wall before turning to face them again. The expression she settled on was a warm smile with a hint of a furrow in her brow.

"Well," she said, looking at all of them. Her smile deepened even as her brow furrowed further, giving her an expression that was difficult to parse.

"I wasn't wrong about you." Elyndra looked at them once more before lightly shaking her head and taking a deep breath. Out of nowhere, she changed her expression completely, smoothing the furrow in her brow and brightening with an energy that seemed almost absurd given the current circumstances. With a smile still on her face, she turned her chair toward them and sat back down, crossing her hands in her lap.

"We will discuss the events that transpired during this night deeply and thoroughly." She paused, then sighed.

"However, it will have to wait, as you are clearly in no condition to do so." It was right after those words that the door to her office suddenly opened. Beyond it, a group of people in uniforms—nurses and doctors—rushed inside, carrying sacks of what, judging by the surrounding mana, looked like artifacts.

"Where's the emergency?" one of them demanded, and then stopped, staring at the students. There was a brief silence.

"—Goddess—""Get a stretcher—""Who has the mana restoratives—""His arm—" The room became organized chaos in approximately four seconds. Amy stood in the middle of it and didn't move. A woman had stopped right in front of her—a middle-aged woman with dark hair silvering at the temples, whom Amy recognized. The last time she had seen her had been in the infirmary following the Building B incident; she was the exact same nurse who had taken care of her. The nurse looked at Amy, then at Elyndra.

"What," she said with clear irritation, "have you done this time?!" This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Elyndra tilted her head and shook it slightly.

"I haven't done anything. I only allowed—""Actually, I don't even want to hear it—""I only allowed a group of talented young people," Elyndra continued, seemingly unbothered by the woman's words, "to experience the romance of youth—""Oh, just shut up—""Dear, I am the headmistress and your boss…" The nurse clicked her tongue, then turned back to Amy. Her expression shifted from exasperated to professional.

"You," she said.

"How long has your nose been bleeding?" Amy looked at her, then at the back of her hand where she'd wiped it at some point she couldn't quite place.

"It's stopped," she said.

"When did it start?" Amy opened her mouth. And then, she realized that she did not actually know. She was standing, and she was answering a question, and the satchel was warm against her side, and Libris was sleeping, and they had made it back—all of them. The ceiling was the right height, the floor was the right orientation, and the air smelled like a normal building, not like obsidian, ice, and black rain— Her legs gave out.

Almost as if it were magic, her body suddenly remembered that she simply had no strength left. She was standing, and then she was considerably less upright, and the only reason she didn't hit the floor was that someone's hands caught her under her arms before the process could complete itself. She looked up. The nurse was there, along with another medic, and somewhere behind them, Elyndra was speaking in a voice that had gone brisk and practical, already directing other people toward the rest of the students.

The satchel pressed against her ribs. Warm. They're still there. Amy let her eyes close, just for a moment. They would talk later, she and Libris. When days passed and they woke up, she would tell them about how she had fulfilled her promise, how hard it had been, how much she had hated the trials, how long she had been fighting, how sad she— The floor came up, or perhaps she went down to meet it. A cot… she realized distantly that someone had slid a cot behind her. She was horizontal. That was good.

That was genuinely good. For the first time since entering the Nightmare, Amy felt safe enough to sleep. And within seconds, she did. -————-　■　-————- Please, for the love of God, don't let this become a habit… Amy woke up in the school's infirmary, in the exact same bed she had spent days in after the Building B incident.

Just like the first time, the small room was completely silent, and there was nobody there apart from herself and Libris, who was in her satchel by the bedside table—actually, they weren't really there, so saying it was just like the first time was inaccurate. Even if they woke up for a few hours in a couple of days, right now, they were in a state no different from a coma. So, basically, she was alone. She was alone. Amy turned her head toward the left, where light was leaking through the window.

It looked like it was afternoon; unless she had slept for multiple days, it seemed not much time had passed. She looked at the blue sky through the window for a couple of seconds before sighing, groaning, and bringing her two bandaged hands to her face. She exhaled and inhaled, again and again, while memories of everything she had gone through gradually came back.

From the cold of the frozen city to their first encounter with the obsidian giant; from the trap Abaddon had set up after killing the Nightmare's version of the headmistress and replacing her with a blood mimic, to their desperate run to reach the teleporter and escape back to the academy while pursued by nightmare creatures; then Libris's semi-sacrifice, her conversation with the Goddess, the trials, the exhaustion they had to endure before the battle with Abaddon, her first kill, and finally, the fight she had alongside Crow and the others.

She kept breathing into her hands, and as she did, a small smile appeared on her face. I did it. Amy lowered her hands from her face and once again turned to look at the blue sky. I did it. The thought repeated over and over again in her still-sleepy mind.

For a second, she thought she might be going crazy or that this was another case of her laughing to keep from crying, but as the smile kept breaking across her face, she realized it wasn't born of extreme panic or sadness, nor even of relief—it was a smile of pure happiness. As she gradually woke up, she could feel her emotions awakening more and more. The sheer amount of happiness she felt at that moment could not be described. She had killed a man, yet just thinking about it made her smile widen.

Was there something wrong with her? Logically speaking, she had done nothing wrong, considering who Abaddon was and what he had done. In fact, wasn't this just incredibly impressive? If this were a video game, Abaddon would have been one of the final bosses, along with the Blood Emperor and the Tribe of Onyx. Yet she and a few other newbies who had barely reached level twenty had beaten him.

Sure, they had massive help from Libris, but Abaddon also had preparation, as well as what looked like the backing of the Blood Emperor—considering he was part of the Building B infiltration by their forces—and he had a blood mimic at his disposal. Despite his being a prophet and having so much in his favor, they had beaten him. And more importantly, nobody had died, unlike the first time. Amy's smile grew, then slowly dropped as she remembered Elias's severed head overlapping with Abaddon's.

The feelings that came to her at that moment were too confusing to think of as anything but noise. She stayed quiet, staring at the ceiling for a few moments, before closing her eyes tightly, taking a deep breath, and throwing off the blanket. What greeted her was a heavily bandaged body. She looked at it with a grimace before sighing and making a motion to stand up from the bed.

But as she did, she felt something—it wasn't related to her body or a noise, but rather a tingling in the air that appeared the moment she tried to move. It was magic, and she had a very good idea of what kind of magic it was. Her suspicions were proven right when, just a few seconds after she sat up on the bed with her feet on the ground, she heard the sound of a door opening. However, contrary to her expectations, the person who came inside wasn't who she thought it would be—at least, not completely.

A tall man with white hair and pure dark eyes opened the door, while a young nurse seemed to be trying desperately to stop him. Kaelen—Zayd's creepy uncle and the professor of divination—was staring at her with a heavy frown, completely ignoring the nurse who was repeatedly shaking his shoulders to get his attention. They stared at each other fixedly, neither speaking nor moving an inch. The standoff only broke when Amy's patience finally ran out.

"Do you need something, Professor?" The silence stretched. Kaelen did not move, nor did he speak. He simply looked at her with that frown fixed in place, as though he were waiting for something. Amy looked back at him. The nurse had given up on the shoulder-shaking and was now hovering to the side, looking extremely uncomfortable. Amy waited. Kaelen waited. She was about to speak again when he finally said, "I need explanations." His voice was exactly how she remembered it—fucking creepily soft.

"Explanations?" Amy repeated.

"For what occurred." She looked at him and sighed.

"What occurred regarding what, specifically?" Kaelen's expression became visibly impatient as he looked at her, his frown deepening.

"Something happened to fate during the Vernal Alignment last night. I became aware of it the moment it occurred. And then I woke to find that you, my nephew, and that group of second-year troublemakers had all been transported to the infirmary." His dark eyes hadn't moved from her face.

"I want to understand what those two things have to do with each other." Amy looked at him for a moment, her brow furrowing.

"Why not go to the headmistress?" she asked.

"The headmistress," Kaelen said after a pause, "is an extremely busy woman."

"And your nephew?" There was another pause.

"Zayd is exhausted. He is not in a condition to have this conversation." Amy opened her mouth and then stopped. She looked at Kaelen's face and tried her best not to smile. So, nobody wanted to tell him, huh? Not even Zayd—which is surprising. Amy theatrically pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose and exhaled.

"I'm also tired," she said.

"Miss Stake—""Please leave." He drew a sharp breath at her words.

"I'm not doing this right now," she said, looking away from him.

"Please. Leave." Kaelen seemed to still be looking at her. Then, to her relief, she heard footsteps a few seconds later. He truly had left. Amy turned to the nurse, who was still standing in the doorway looking like a statue.

"I'd like to rest," she said.

"Please." The nurse hesitated, then nodded once while muttering an apology. She stepped back and finally drew the door closed behind her with a soft click. Amy stared at the closed door for exactly one second, then let herself fall backward onto the bed. The ceiling was the exact same ceiling it had been when she woke up: plain stone with nothing significant about it. She stared at it. Right… Right, of course. Obviously.

You survive a Nightmare made literal, kill a prophet, have a conversation with a goddess, and make it back with everyone breathing. And naturally, the very next thing that happens is a divination professor standing over your infirmary bed demanding answers while you're still covered in bandages. Because there is never—there is genuinely, structurally, apparently never—an end to this shit. Amy took a couple of deep breaths before biting her lip. You know what?

He can get mad all he wants and use all the 'schemes' and bullshit that he wants to try to make me talk. I won't do it. Not only will I not talk, I also won't do a single thing. I fucking killed a prophet. I deserve a fucking break, at least for a single month. Amy closed her eyes and reached her hand toward her side. The satchel was warm against the bedside table, just within reach. In the back of her mind, the copy of Libris that Azazel had given her was still present.

The demon had told her to open it in solitude; she was now in solitude. Yet she didn't move her hand toward it as she normally would with something that seemed this important. She just reminded herself it was still there, safely resting alongside the sleeping Libris. That was enough for now.