Two days passed after the second years returned from Nalim, and by the end of the second day, the academy had begun to feel alive in a way it had not during the assessments.

The first years had already returned from Vlardia days before the second years, and most of them had spent their own recovery time whispering about what they had endured, comparing injuries, laughing at their own mistakes, and pretending they were far more composed than they actually had been.

When the second years returned from Nalim looking half-dead and carrying the kind of exhaustion that made even walking through the halls seem like a task, the first years quickly understood that their three-day assessment had been mild compared to whatever nightmare the second years had survived.

Then, by the second day after the second years’ return, the third years also came back from whatever assessment the academy had prepared for them, and although no official details were given immediately, their condition alone suggested that their own test had not been gentle either.

With all three academic years back inside the academy, the entire school entered a strange little period of loosened discipline and shared recovery. The breaks given to each year were not exactly the same, but since all students were expected to resume academic studies together afterward, the atmosphere across the academy softened for a while.

Students filled the courtyards, lounges, dining halls, bathhouses, and shaded walkways with the kind of restless relief that only came after surviving something difficult. Some students trained lightly despite being told to rest, others slept through half the day, and many spent their time retelling assessment stories with details that grew more dramatic every time they were repeated.

Among the second years, the ranking announcement remained the center of most conversations.

Sheila’s return to rank one had already begun settling into the academy’s social rhythm, and many students seemed more comfortable now that the top of their year belonged to someone they could accept without fear or resentment clouding every thought.

Asher’s rise to second was also discussed with interest, though many did so carefully because Asher himself looked like the rank gave him more frustration than pride.

Charlotte’s leap over Chris became a favorite topic among those who enjoyed gossip, especially because Charlotte herself did nothing to discourage the stories. Chris’s fall, naturally, created quieter and more dangerous conversations, with some students enjoying it, some defending him, and others wisely choosing not to speak too openly when Tempest loyalists were nearby.

But Liam Hunter drew the most attention.

Nearly the entire student body had heard, in one form or another, that Liam had fought and defeated a Sync-class demon alone. Some knew it as a Berserker. Others only knew that it was something beyond what a second-year student should have faced.

The fact that he had dropped from rank one to rank three only made the story more debated, not less. Some argued that no one who erased a Sync-class demon should have fallen at all. Others argued that Regulus had been right, that being unconscious for nearly thirty-six hours in an individual survival assessment was almost the same as failing.

First years spoke about Liam in half-whispers, many of them still trying to connect the quiet dark mage they sometimes saw around the academy to the stories older students told. Even some of the newly returned third years showed interest in him, especially those who remembered hearing that this same second year had defeated Percy Granger in a duel before Percy graduated.

Yet despite the attention surrounding him, Liam was almost never seen.

He did not linger in the cafeteria. He did not sit in the courtyards. He did not take part in the relaxed conversations happening across the academy. When students looked for him out of curiosity, they rarely found him. When they did see him, it was usually only briefly, moving through a hall with his usual calm expression before disappearing again.

To many, that only made the stories around him grow larger. To those who knew him better, however, his absence meant something else entirely.

Liam spent most of those two days either inside his room or beneath Grandeur City, in the underground training hall Queen Lucy had once commissioned for his use.

There, away from the noise of the academy and the eyes of curious students, he trained.

He should have been resting.

The infirmary had already told him that much. His body had not fully recovered from Nalim. The healing had closed wounds, stabilized damage, and restored enough function for him to move normally, but that did not mean he was healed in any complete sense. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

His muscles still carried deep fatigue. His ribs still protested under strain. His channels still felt raw when he drew too much Myst too quickly. His left arm, especially, retained an unpleasant echo of the output he had forced through it against the Berserker. But Liam ignored what he should have done and focused instead on what his mind would not stop replaying.

The first mistake was his entry.

Again and again, he replayed the moment he fell into Nalim from the sky, the impact through the canopy, the Gravecoils, the swamp, the loss of his supplies, the puncture wound through his thigh, and the way everything became harder because he had failed to preserve what he entered with.

He knew the academy had placed him in a brutal position, but that did not fully excuse his lack of proper control over the situation. He had adapted afterward, yes, but adaptation was not the same as prevention.

If he had handled those first moments better, if he had secured the bag more effectively, if he had landed with greater control, the first day might not have cost him so much.

Then came the second mistake.

The eastern forest.

The Berserker.

That mistake was worse because he could not blame the academy for it.

He had chosen to go.

Charlotte had warned him. The signs had been clear. The territory had been dangerous, the corpses unnatural, the Myst pressure wrong. He had known enough to understand that whatever waited there was beyond an ordinary Advanced Horror.

And still, he had gone because part of him wanted confirmation, part of him wanted knowledge, and a deeper part of him wanted a fight brutal enough to drag out the frustration that had been sitting inside him long before Nalim.

That was the part he hated most.

He had allowed his frustration to move him.

Not fully. Not blindly. He had not lost all judgment. But enough. Enough that he walked into danger he could have avoided. Enough that he convinced himself the reason was intelligence gathering when the truth was uglier and more personal.

Enough that he nearly turned victory into failure.