Let’s Go Together

“Yes, go ahead.”

The Spiritology professor stood at the lectern, waiting for a student’s question. To her, whether they were freshmen or graduating seniors, all students looked like children. She watched the one raising his hand with a pleased expression.

“It’s about the lava lake underground.”

Mikhail Luce Inehart opened his mouth to speak.

“Are the salamanders down there being raised by you, Professor?”

“…Is that a question?”

The professor tilted her head as if she’d heard something odd. Narrowing her eyes, she seemed to be gauging whether Mikhail was joking. But seeing the serious expression on his face and the calm way he lowered his previously raised hand, she concluded it wasn’t a prank.

“First of all…”

The professor began to speak.

“Spirits are free beings. They don’t stay anywhere they don’t want to.”

Standing at the lectern, she corrected the student’s misconception about spirits. One mustn’t lump spirits together with ordinary animals. Spirits were much closer to the source of mana—in other words, the essence of the world—than they were to typical life forms. The idea that humans could simply “raise” such beings was absurd.

But there was something even more important. The question itself had an odd premise to begin with.

“Also, the only thing underground in this building is the research lab.”

“Huh…? That can’t be…”

Mikhail muttered with a frown. The Spiritology professor explained further, thinking the student must have misunderstood something after stumbling upon the Alchemy Department’s experiments in the basement.

“The basement is shared between the Alchemy and Spiritology departments. A lava lake? There’s no way something that dangerous exists underneath the Academy.”

She chuckled lightly and gave a small shrug. It was clear she believed Mikhail had simply mistaken the place for somewhere else.

As Adrian Heather leaned comfortably against the lecture hall seat, watching the prince ask his question, he slowly lifted his back off the chair. Something felt off.

We definitely saw a lava lake.

Adrian tilted his head toward the prince, who had just received a strange answer. Mikhail, too, was looking at Adrian. The eyes of the two boys met midair in the lecture hall.

After the Spiritology lecture ended, Adrian Heather tapped his thick book against the desk a few times to straighten it, then stood up. That was when it happened.

“Hey, you’re coming, right?”

At that rough form of address, the kind street thugs might use, Adrian slowly turned his body. A young man was leaning against the back wall of the lecture hall.

Of course that bastard would talk like this.

Adrian gave a crooked smile. The two nodded at the same time.

They needed to go check again.

***

After class, Adrian and Mikhail walked in the same direction as if they had made plans in advance. The crisp sound of their steps echoed against the Academy’s elegant marble floors.

As they descended the staircase of the lecture hall building side by side—

“Oh?”

A student coming up the stairs from the opposite side spotted the two and let out a surprised sound. It was Hans Tavian.

“Hello.”

“Hey, where are you two off to?”

Since they’d run into someone they knew, Adrian offered a polite smile and returned the greeting. But that was all—he had no particular business with Hans, so he replied vaguely and turned to continue down the stairs.

“We’ve got something to check in the basement.”

That was until Hans stepped in front of Adrian and blocked his path after confirming they were headed downstairs.

“Why would freshmen go to the basement? There are only research labs down there.”

Hans blocked their way with the confidence of someone delivering very Important Information. Unfortunately, Adrian and Mikhail were both fairly tall and broad, so his attempt at obstruction didn’t look particularly effective.

Mikhail quietly sidestepped his arm and continued down the stairs. Adrian, who was only slightly more polite by comparison, addressed Hans.

“Oh, is that so?”

He followed that up with, “Thanks for the heads-up, Senior,” in a tone that sounded anything but grateful. But Hans, being a perfectly average guy, mistook Adrian’s feigned junior politeness for sincerity and puffed up proudly as he added more.

“Seriously. The only things down there are the Spiritology and Alchemy department labs. You’re probably just confused, right?”

“…We just need to check on something unrelated.”

Adrian replied as he walked down toward where Mikhail was waiting.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

Hans changed direction in a flash, stepping off the stairs and falling into step right beside Adrian. Ugh, what a pain. Adrian frowned slightly but kept his expression in check. After all, the guy was technically an upperclassman, so he replied as civilly as possible.

“…Something weird happened this morning…”

Adrian deliberately trailed off. The implication was clear: It’s kind of a long story—are you really gonna listen to the whole thing? Hans, thinking Adrian was about to spill everything, nodded eagerly. Mikhail, who had been waiting at the entrance to the stairs leading underground for quite a while now, looked up at them with an annoyed expression that clearly said, Are you coming or what?

“Something weird?”

Hans tilted his head.

“That’s wild. Did you guys go through that strange door down there too?”

Adrian came to an abrupt stop. The word “you guys too” struck his ears with perfect clarity. What an unexpected windfall. His brown eyes narrowed slightly, a faint, intrigued smile forming on his lips. Down at the base of the stairs, Mikhail lifted his head sharply.

“Now I’m curious. Besides us, which other students had that kind of experience?”

Hans cleared his throat with a dramatic ahem.

“Seriously? Just ask. I’m standing right in front of you.”

“…You too, senior?”

Adrian asked again, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“Hurry up,” Mikhail cut in bluntly from the bottom of the stairs, clearly annoyed with the prolonged conversation. The two students resumed their descent.

“Yeah. And every year, a few students go through the same thing. It’s one of those pranks passed down from the Six Gods of Basamiel.”

The number six was oddly specific, but Adrian’s thoughts were too tangled to focus on that.

He was a dragon. Mana was a toy to a dragon—something they learned to manipulate from the moment they were born. And yet, this morning, when he stood before that door, he hadn’t sensed a single disturbance. A lava lake and salamanders… And salamanders were not something humans could control. This was beyond human magic—an illusion outside the limits of mortal capability.

“I’ll show you where I saw it.”

“Yes, please do.”

Seeing Adrian and Hans heading down together, the prince raised an eyebrow. But since there was no reason to turn down someone offering help, Mikhail started walking again as well.

The three students stopped in front of the Alchemy Department’s underground lab door. The reason it was specified as “in front of the lab door” was because the entire right-hand corridor of the basement held absolutely nothing else.

“…This is insane.”

Adrian pressed his palm against the wall beside the lab, as if refusing to believe what he was seeing. He couldn’t feel even a trace of mana. Without drawing upon the mana of his true body, he couldn’t examine it in more detail—but what mattered was this: this wasn’t human magic.

“When I saw it the first time, I seriously thought I’d lost my mind.”

Hans nodded as if to say he completely understood. Seeing that, the prince finally spoke up.

“Senior, you—”

The word senior coming out of Mikhail’s mouth for the first time made both Adrian and Hans whip their heads around. Mikhail was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He looked as indifferent as ever, but the disbelief written across his face said otherwise.

“What exactly happened to you?”

“I…”

Hans began to recall that day. He had just finished piano practice and was absentmindedly heading downstairs, only to realize he’d gone past the first floor and all the way down to the basement. For a student from the Arts Faculty, coming down to the Academy basement was practically unheard of—unless you were a first-year in the integrated program.

‘Ah… I went too far.’

Hans immediately realized his mistake and turned to go back up. That’s when it happened. Somewhere in the basement corridor, he heard the chirping of a bird.

Huh? He turned his head, which had been facing the stairs, back toward the hallway with a sharp motion.

Did a bird get trapped down here in the dark? Hans had thought that since he’d come all the way to the basement anyway, he might as well rescue the poor thing and bring it back up to the first floor.

But that meant he’d have to walk down the pitch-black corridor alone.

Ugh… Hans rubbed his palms up and down his arms, trying to chase away the goosebumps. The place gave him the creeps. Even so, he walked all the way to the end of the hall—but there was no bird in sight. Yet the chirping reached his ears again. Where is it coming from?

Hans came to an abrupt stop in front of an iron door deep in the basement. The birdsong was coming from behind it. Holding his breath, he glanced to the side at the adjacent Alchemy Department lab. It was the same room he’d taken classes in back when he was a first-year.

Back then…

There wasn’t a door like this here, was there?

Or… maybe? Hans wasn’t sure if he could trust his own memory anymore. Meanwhile, the bird kept chirping peacefully just beyond the metal door. Hans figured he might as well open it, since he’d come this far.

The iron door, which looked heavy, opened surprisingly easily. Creak… He pushed it just a little and peered through the crack. A cool breeze brushed against his hair. Hans briefly closed his eyes at the sensation, then took a look inside.

His eyes widened.

Holy crap…

Beyond the door… was a dense forest.

“A forest?”

Adrian, who had been listening quietly, muttered under his breath. We saw a lava lake, and he saw a forest? Just who was behind this, and why? He tilted his head, deep in thought.

“In the end, I gave up on the bird. The forest was just too thick…”

Adrian nodded politely, though the information didn’t interest him in the slightest. The bird didn’t matter.

“Did you go in?”

Hans answered immediately.

“No.”

There was fear in his eyes.

“It felt like… if I stepped inside, I’d never be able to come back out.”

Hans replied.