The hall was silent. This was simply too much to take in! In just a short moment, the Vilnor Empire had been condemned as an oath-breaker, an entire company of high officials—including master magicians—had been taken captive by just a few people, and of all people a Praefectus had appeared! Not to mention, she literally just walked up and killed the emperor before all the leaders of his whole government.

Following that, eight people dropped dead, one after another. It was unfortunate, but rulership cannot so easily be changed without blood. These people were close advisors and strong supporters of Orvan. Furthermore, many of them were responsible for the fate of Splendor. The countless innocent deaths had now been avenged at the hand of Xendus.

Xendus nodded at Reylor, as if to say “that’s enough,” and the domain was released.

“Kill them!” Several figures immediately rushed at the group of Xendus, Queen, Reylor, and Elany. Unfortunately, they were all Rank-S at the most, and didn’t last long. Thus the work of rebuilding the government commenced.

In the span of a few short months, many new changes were enacted. A new palace was erected, and the old one was destroyed after any valuable items and documents were moved to the new palace site. The borders of the Vilnor Empire were redrawn, shrinking the Empire’s territory by a considerable margin, especially from the north and from the southeast. Finally, many rulers were replaced, and many people were either admitted or freed from the prisons.

All the while, Reylor and company helped out, whether as messengers, work supervisors, guards, or anything else that was needed. Flint also helped out with some of the building construction. Finally, however, things slowed down a bit, and both Queen and Xendus noticed a few of Reylor’s crew growing a bit anxious.

“Reylor, Elany, Khes, Flint, and Aileen—Go with Xendus. We have something for you to do.” Queen spoke in her characteristically smooth, cool voice. Since she no longer wore her hooded robe, they could tell that she definitely was not upset with them, though. She even wore a bit of a warm expression—especially when looking at Elany. Queen was so beautiful and elegant that all the guys, save for Eric and Xendus, considered how much of a shame it was that she had hidden herself for so long. Nevertheless, they had something to do, so they followed Xendus through a spatial gate.

“Votran?” Elany said questioningly. “Why did you take us back to Votran?”

“You’ll see,” Xendus said with a smile, as he led them through the gates of the academy, then on to the main auditorium on campus. He then pushed open the heavy wooden doors (effortlessly) and brought them to the start of the center aisle.

“Umm. What’s going on?” Aileen asked. The auditorium was full. The entire school had been summoned for some occasion, and here Xendus just brought them in and stopped in front of the walkway. It was kind of unnerving for her to just stand there, attracting more and more of the gazes of those present.

“Huh, isn’t that Aileen?” “Yeah, she was in one of my classes. There’s Reylor, too. You know him right? The one that gave us that weird energy stuff to study?” “Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about.” “Oh, I think that guy’s name was Flint.” “Yeah, but do you know who that other girl is? She’s really pretty”

There were many conversations going in hushed tones. No matter what they talked about, there was on question all of them had: what is the purpose of this meeting? Luckily, they didn’t have long to wait.

“Clap, clap”

At the sound, everyone turned their attention toward Earlstine, who was standing on the stage.

“Reylor, Elany, Aileen, Khes, and Flint, please come up to the stage.”

At Earlstine’s beckon, they slowly made their way up the middle aisle to the stage, as per Xendus’s instructions.

The room was still eerily silent, as none save Xendus and Earstine knew what was happening.

“All rise!” Earlstine called out, when the group had made it to the stage.

The student body rose to their feet.

For you service to, and at the decree of Her Majesty Queensilvia Praefectus, I elevate Elany, Khes, Aileen and flint to Rank-A as individuals. I elevate Reylor to Class-S+ as an individual.”

“Woah!” A murmur rang out.

“And I elevate your squad rank to Class-S, as well as declaring that you have earned the right to these official diplomas certifying your graduation from Votran Academy. Congratulations, you are now certified as full-fledged mages under the authority of the Votran Academy and the Praefectus Empire!”

The auditorium erupted in applause. As the eyes of Aileen, Elany, and Flint grew big. “We are going to graduate? I thought our opportunity was over! Wow!”

Of course the shiny diploma wasn’t the main thing they were looking forward to, but the prime spells they would be able to pick out from the collection. It was a great day to be alive!

*** *** ***

“So, how did you like my little surprise?” Queen asked.

After the festivities and the excruciatingly long time most took to select their prime spells, they had returned to the new palace to meet again before they set off on their next journey.

“Oh, thank you Miss Queen!” Elany cried out, flinging her arms around the wondrous figure before her.

The group one-by-one gave their thanks for what Queen had done for them in granting them full mage rights, and access to Votran’s prime spell vault.

“Now, I believe you have other matters that must be attended to?” Queen stated in a questioning tone.

“Quite so,” Reylor replied. “I for one have my primary mission still in hand—to end the existence of the shade. I must ask, a question, however. I have learned of a place that may very well be at the center of the shade problem. Unfortunately, however, it seems to be quite a distance away, which means we will be traveling for quite some time. Now that we have graduated, it is unnecessary to remain in a squad. So, who wishes to join me, and are there any who would prefer to stay?”

“You’re not getting rid of me!” Elany called out, as she moved from Queen to latch onto Reylor’s arm. Since coming to stay with the Village Elder, she had become a one-person sort. She would have many friends, but there would be one person she would always stick with. In the aftermath of the elder’s death, Reylor had become the one she had chosen.

Reylor felt his heart become warm. “Of course, I won’t leave you behind,” He said, lovingly looking over at her. (AN: this is in a familial sense)

“You know, you’ve become a lot warmer than you were when we first me,” Elany said contentedly.

Reylor made a slightly confused face.

“We will come, as well,” Eric pronounced. “Our town is on the outskirts of the empire, and so we have had quite a few casualties from the shade. If we can end this menace, our time will be well spent.”

“I think I will stay back. I honestly am not interested in this kind of excitement, plus I think my skill could be best put to work with helping rebuild the Shildwell territories.”

Reylor nodded pleasantly. “Very well.”

“I-I’ll go with you guys,” Khes said quietly.

“Good choice!” Eric said with a wink and a thumbs-up, immediately causing Khes’s face to turn crimson.

“Why’d you say that?” Aileen asked, tilting her head in confusion.

“It’s a guy thing, don’t worry about it,” Eric replied, thereby sending Queen and all the guys in the room in to fits of stifled laughter. Well, except for Khes, of course, who had retreated to the darkest corner he could find in the room.

“Alright, then. Looks like we are set,” Reylor declared, at which, everyone began adjusting their gear and preparing to move out.

“Not so fast, Reylor. You missed someone.”

“Huh?” He looked around the room. “I don’t see anyone else, and I’m pretty sure Queen and Xendus have their own hands full as is…”

“Bang!” “Huff, huff, huff.” A figure burst through the doors to the room, froze for a moment, and then relaxed a bit after seeing everyone was still there.

“You—huff, huff—are not going—huff—without me this time!” This person who had their hands on their knees as they were catching their breath, stood up. She was wearing a gorgeous black robe with red accents. Her skin was fine, like ivory. And her eyes—they blazed like fire. She had ditched on her friends before, and she was not going to leave them again.

Lucy had felt quite terrible about what she had done at the gates of Votran City, and so now she wanted to show her companions that she was not the ungrateful person she had been, and so she had arranged several leading figures in her territory to cooperate with Queen and Xendus in the reconstruction, so that she could now accompany Reylor on his quest to end the corruption that was the shade. This time, things would be different.

Reylor, whom Elany had released from her death grip at this point, walked up to Lucy and placed his hand on her shoulder and gazed into her blazing eyes. Lucy flinched a bit but returned the gaze, a teardrop threatening to fall from the side of her eye as she recounted the shame that Reylor had brought her from, and the shame that she felt she had returned in spite of his kindness. Yet what met her was a pair of smiling eyes and two words: “Welcome back.”

*** *** ***

In an area far to the north and a bit west:

“Vwerr” Reylor and crew stepped out of a permenant spatial gate from the capital to a sight for very sore eyes. The land looked like a waste. There were hardly any plants, and the whole area was littered with tunnels and mountains of dirt. “Where are we?” Elany asked to no one in particular. “Is this Dregnest?”

A gate guard replied, “No, missy. This here is far worse than what you’d find there. This is Gruvedrift, an unowned territory rich in minerals, and therefore a mining territory. It does border Gruvedrift, but you’d need to head east for quite the distance to get there. If yer looking for dwarves, you’d find quite a few just a bit to the west, but their not a sight fer your pretty eyes.”

The word “shameless” ran through Reylor’s mind, but he just nodded and set off, dragging a bewildered Elany with him.

Incidentally, west was the direction they need to go. Reylor had reinvestigated the circle of spatial energy from the Votran forest and came to the conclusion that its source was to the very far west. Unfortunately, there was a great sea at the western border of the Vilnor—now Praefectus—Empire. It was unknown if any ship had made the voyage to the next shore, and so they had little choice but to head north and the take a land route to the south-west.

It did not take them long to find what the guard was talking about.

“C’mon, is this all you got? If you can get more than that, Orvan’s gonna take your nation next week, haha!”

A young man in official Vilnor apparel was berating a group of dwarves that had just brought him the results of their day’s labor, quite the chunk of minerals.

“Come on! Don’t look at me like that! You’re dwarves, you’re supposed to, ya know, like digging and stuff.”

“We dig because we like to smelt. Not because we feel like supporting you…” And angered dwarf started spouting off, but was cut short by one of his companions.”

“Oh? Bold are we? It appears you need a little reminder of your place here.” The young dwarf’s eyes grew big in fright. “Elgrin, kill the brute.” The soldier shouted to a mage sitting off to the side.

“Huh? Elgrin?” The mage was just sitting there, staring off to the side with a blank look on his face.

“What’s going on?” “The heeeeeck?” He turned to face the direction the mage was staring off to. He wet his pants as he too, started staring with a blank look.

What met his eyes was a group of six travelers. Well—that is only if you counted the person who looked like a personal reincarnation of the sun. Lucy was mad.

“Scum!” She screamed. She had experienced real slavery, and this didn’t look much different. Thus her anger was kindled. “Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are working for?” She yelled out with passion. “Look, dwarves! And watch as I reap one of the last remnants of the scum of Vilnor!”

Now the dwarves were the ones with blank looks on their faces. They were wondering “Who is this flaming idiot?” nevertheless, this person was doing them a favor; and no one felt like doing anything to tick off this “flaming idiot.”

While Lucy commenced her “stress relief” activity, Reylor attended to the dwarves.

“So from what I heard, it appears that you were told you guys have to supply Vilnor with materials, or they would return and take over your nation for real. Is that right?” Reylor asked.

“Uh, huh” One of the dwarves slowly turned his attention from the “Flaming—“ yeah, you get the picture… Anyways he assented that this indeed was the case.

“Well, I have a bit of news for you, though it is actually a few months old…” At this point the rest of the dwarves had managed to take their eyes off Lucy (who was now yelling unseemly things at the young man) and looked at Reylor with a mix of fear and distrust, but also a bit of hope. “What is going on? What is he going to say? Will it be good or bad? I’m so tired of working for these demons.”

What he said was not what any of them were expecting.

“Orvan is dead. Vilnor has been conquered”