Rein sat near the back of the classroom, elbow resting on a stack of borrowed books. His hand lazily traced lines in his notebook—more doodles than notes. The chalkboard up front was filled with glowing runes and scrawled formulas. Arcanic Phase Shifts, Leyline Rejection, Emotive Influence on Mana Flow. None of it stuck. Not today.
The words blurred together. Not because he didn't understand. He did. He was sharp—at least, Lucius said so. But the weight in his chest had nothing to do with theory or spellcraft. Something else had been gnawing at him for days now.
He could feel it again. That prickling sensation crawling across his nape, the one that told him he wasn't alone.
He glanced sideways.
The students around him were deep in study or half-asleep. A girl in front of him chewed the end of her pen. Someone in the corner was sketching spell circles onto their boot. No one looked at him.
But he felt it.
Watching.
Lingering.
Unseen.
He looked down, pen frozen mid-scratch. She's still here. He didn't have to say her name. He didn't know it. Just a shadow in his mind. But the pressure—heavy, haunting, almost... desperate—it hadn't left since he saw her in the courtyard that night.
"Mr. Rein," Professor Varros called sharply, yanking him out of his head. "Is the spirit of distraction more fascinating than the spirit of elemental convergence?"
A few students laughed under their breath.
Rein straightened. "No, sir."
"Then perhaps you'd care to demonstrate emotional state influence on conjuration?"
Rein hesitated, then stood and moved to the front. He raised his palm, focused on the sigil carved into the practice circle.
"Gust," he said softly.
A small swirl of wind formed, lifted some dust, and then died out. Technically sound. Emotionally? Flat.
Professor Varros arched a brow. "Adequate. Dull, but adequate. You may sit."
As Rein returned to his seat, someone behind him muttered, just loud enough to hear, "Guess he's better at using his mouth for other things."
Snickers followed.
Rein's jaw tightened.
"Honestly, what's he doing here?" another student said. "A jiggolo from a brothel joining the Hero's Party? Is this a joke?"
"He should be teaching pleasure magic, not combat theory."
Rein didn't respond. He'd heard worse. He lived worse. But that didn't make it easier. They knew where he came from. They all did. Word spread fast when the Headmaster plucked a sex slave from a brothel and gave him a research position.
He clenched his pen so hard it snapped.
The bell rang, releasing the class. Rein moved fast, slipping out before anyone could stop him.
The hallways of the academy were alive with chatter and footsteps. Students moved in groups, voices echoing down stone corridors. He kept his head low, weaving through the crowd, ignoring the whispers.
He made it to the eastern wing, where the research labs and archives were tucked away. Quiet. Safe.
Usually.
He walked past tall glass cases filled with old relics and spell cores, making his way toward his usual study spot. But halfway there, he stopped.
That feeling again.
Someone was watching.
His eyes flicked to the window—but nothing. The corridor was empty. No footsteps. No flicker of mana. Just silence and the sound of his own breath.
She's close.
He didn't know how he knew. He just did. Every time it happened, the sensation left behind a strange warmth. Familiar and alien at the same time. A weight on his chest. A hand reaching from behind a curtain of fog.
That night, he sat in his dorm room, journal open on his desk. Not his journal—Lucius had handed it to him earlier in the week. A collection of notes from the last expedition into the Forbidden Forest.
The pages were filled with jagged sketches and broken sentences.
"The trees shift when you're not looking."
"If you hear her voice, run."
"The deeper you go, the more the forest remembers you."
He frowned at that last line.
What's that supposed to mean?
He'd read everything he could about the forest. It was a curiosity—more of a puzzle than a place. His knowledge was academic. Distant. Detached. There was no memory, no personal connection, no sense of déjà vu. But sometimes, in the quiet, his fingers would tremble when he turned the pages. Like some part of him wanted to remember. But couldn't.
He closed the journal and stepped to the window for air.
Then he froze.
In the garden below, near the tree line, a figure stood in the dark.
A woman.
Unmoving.
Watching.
His breath caught.
He blinked—and she was gone.
The next morning, Professor Kelden greeted the class with his usual half-awake smile.
"Good morning, my magically disoriented misfits," he drawled. "Today we practice controlled spellcasting. Minimal flair. Maximum focus. Rein, since you look like you've seen a ghost, you're up first."
Rein stepped forward to the center of the casting circle. He raised his hand.
"Gust."
Wind stirred, pushing outward in a precise spiral. It was clean. Flawless. But empty.
Kelden tilted his head. "That's too clean."
"I'm just tired," Rein muttered.
"No. You're holding back."
Rein looked away.
He wasn't wrong. Something inside him was waking up. Power. Raw and unpredictable. He remembered the first time he used it back in the brothel. When he finally snapped. The look on those women's faces when the air shattered like glass around them. That wasn't spellwork. That was instinct. Rage.
And now, it was stirring again.
Maybe it was the expedition.
Maybe it was Diana.
Or maybe…
Maybe it was her.
The one who stared at him from the shadows. The one whose name he couldn't remember. The one whose voice echoed in dreams he couldn't place.