*Boom!*
A giant block of earth crashed in a roof, plummeting through it with ease. A small wooden house at the mercy of Lara’s magic. The roof sunk and splintering bits of wood shot out of the debris.
A low groan resounded from the depths of the house, then a moment later blood seeped through the windows and flowed under the front door.
Lara nodded to herself, seeing that her guess was correct.
The house itself was a living mimic, a gut-filled mess of organs and teeth filled its insides, while the outside looked like a perfectly inviting house to come into, and it waited for an unwary adventurer to step inside.
The mimics were magic-immune, but these large slow-moving targets were an easy monster for Lara’s projectiles. To her, it was hardly training. She was merely grinding exp, giving her body the rest it needed.
In a few hours, a week had passed since the incident—the incursion of Lannister into the mirror reality, and then the sky fall that wounded both of them.
After recovering from the fall, Lara had been training diligently for the upcoming academy tournament, ignoring her body’s calls to slow down. Every time she moved, the bruising of her sore bones groaned back, a reminder of the damage she caused herself. Normally her duels in the arena prevented injuries and most of the pain, and she’d forgotten just how painful wounds could be, just how fragile life was—even with a class.
Each strain of her muscle weighed on her mind, distracting her own manacraft, and each time she crushed a mimic her thoughts kept drifting back to Lannister, who still lay in an infirmary bed, unmoving.
The sky fall reduced Lannister’s health to zero, his body absorbing the rest of the damage, which could be permanent if not for the hasty healing of the infirmary classes and other tricks of the variants. But he still hadn’t woken up.
Lara didn’t understand why she kept thinking about him. She wanted to fight him again, but there was something else, something that made her want to hide her face, but instead of exploring those thoughts she shook her head, trying not to think about it.
Lara meagerly trudged through the dungeon, tiredly skipping rocks at whatever large, out-of-place thing she saw, sending something larger than a stone if it moved, but after a weary sigh she lowered her head and left the dungeon.
Slowly walking back to her dorm, a voice came to her ears.
“Lara? Lannister woke up. He wants to speak to you.” Evelynn said, and Lara quickly pulled out the communication crystal, stopping her walk and staring at it, grasped tightly in her fingers. She paused for a moment before replying.
“What? Why me?” Lara asked.
Evelynn softly sighed, “Just come to the infirmary.”
Lara blinked at the crystal a few times, waiting for more information, but there was none, and she replied after a short silence.
“I’m on my way.” Lara said, and hurried to the academy healing area.
Lara wasn’t sure what was going on, much less what to feel—why was she being summoned? Was Lannister angry at her? Should she be angry at him—or concerned? Did he die? He was an intruder so she didn’t feel like she was in the wrong here.
Lara guessed and assumed as she walked.
Other than the fight, he has nothing to do with me… Do they think I let him in, or betrayed the academy? Lara thought.
She thought it was odd, in fact, it was inappropriate to bring her into his infirmary room. A hospital bed was still a personal bed after all, and she was a student without any healing magic.
She wondered if there was punishment waiting, in case he did die. Lara knew her perfect record of duels she worked so hard for would sink into gray meaninglessness if she knew she took someone’s life, not to mention the punishment for doing so.
What enjoyment is there in prizes, merit, or badges when you have blood on your hands? Lara was certain there was none, and picked up her pace.
Just outside the infirmary a number of students had crowded around, causing a stir. All of them were trying to peek inside, while the more cunning insisted they were sick and had to be brought in—only to be rejected a moment later. None of them even noticed Lara coming until she passed by. Once they saw her, they made themselves small and stepped back quietly, showing a fearful respect for the first-year duel master.
A caretaker nurse at the front desk eyed Lara up and down, and gave her a tired look. Another student trying to sneak in?
“Hi. Evelynn told me to come here.” Lara said.
“Oh did she? Well, let me call her.” The nurse said, slowing pulling out a communication crystal, tapping them over it and watching Lara for a reaction. They both knew Evelynn would punish Lara if this was a lie.
Yet Lara didn’t flinch—Instead, she leaned on the desk and she glanced around the room, lazily picking details out. The nurse raised a brow, went ahead and made the call, and a moment later she glanced up at Lara with a look of shock on her face. Lara heard the last of the conversation.
“She’s the one? Okay I’ll send her through. Thanks, bye.” The nurse put her crystal down and glanced up at Lara.
“Hallway six. Bed eleven.” The nurse said, pointing to a hallway behind her while looking down at some paperwork, trying to hide any embarrassment.
“Six-eleven. Thanks.” Lara nodded and walked past into a long hallway.
The hallway had a set of double doors at the end, both of them giving off a purple wavy hue, like a thick violet gas was clinging to its surface. However as Lara walked closer, she slowed, feeling nauseas. Her vision split into doubles, seeing two sets of double doors.
“Ah.” She stopped, rubbing her head and her eyes. “Maybe I overdid it.” She said to herself.
She looked at her own hands, and the feeling disappeared instantly. Her vision was back to normal.
She glanced up at the hallway doors again—but it was still like double vision. Two sets of double doors.
“What…” she whispered, holding her hand up while looking at the two sets of hallways behind it. Her hand wasn’t doubled, but somehow the hallway had split into two.
Lara cautiously took a step forward, holding her hand up to make sure she didn’t feel nauseas and wasn’t going crazy. With each step she took, the hallways miraculously splintered, diverging before her very eyes like a kaleidoscope. Hundreds of them split, thousands appeared and disappeared. Then, as she approached she noticed numbers above the sets of double-doors. She stopped for a moment and read.
[27,182]
“Hmm?” Lara raised a brow, and took a step to the left.
[15,693]
Then another, and she watched thousands of hallways flicker in and out of her vision in an instant.
[10,542]
No matter how many steps she took, she didn’t touch the wall at her side, and the hallway numbers kept decreasing until it finally went down to the one what she wanted.
Why were the students trying to see inside when we have this? Lara wondered, and looked up, trying to find hallway eleven.
[11]
“Hallway eleven, bed six.” She said with a nod, reminding herself as she slowly walked through the double doors.
Behind the doors, the hallway continued for only about 50 yards, surprising Lara as she thought it would be as infinite as the number of halls. Rooms lined each wall and she found the bed she was searching for under a [5-8] sign. Evelynn was already waiting outside for her, tapping her heel.
Evelynn didn’t seem sad or grim, infact, she seemed displeased. Lara wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or not.
“Lara, hello. He wanted to talk to you. I think it’s best that you have a chat with him, then we tell you what we’ll be doing after.” Evelynn said, gesturing her into the room.
“Talk to me? Okay.” Lara said, her face expressionless. She was glad Lannister was alive, but had a feeling she was about to be punished.
