‘No, this couldn’t be…’ I froze after hearing a disturbingly familiar voice.

  Yet, to my great displeasure, the person standing behind me turned out to be none other than the haughty noble boy from the acceptance trial - Tristan of Emerald Lake.

  ‘Wait, what? Fiancé?’ I then threw a covert glance at Mira, who seemed to shrink under my gaze.

  I briefly wondered how such a smart girl could have agreed to marry that babbling idiot, but then I shrugged my shoulders and decided not to dwell on it. After all, it was not important right now and, frankly, not my problem.

  However, an even bigger surprise was the person standing next to him: my former teammate Edwin. ‘Why is he with him?’ I couldn’t imagine them being allies, given their vastly different personalities.

  Yet, by the look of it, it seemed to be more of an alliance born out of necessity rather than mutual sympathies. Whatever the case, this presented a great opportunity to learn about the current situation since I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a straight answer from Tristan.

  So, while purposefully ignoring Tristan’s hateful glare, I turned my attention to the solemn-looking boy. “It’s a pleasure to once again make your acquaintance, Edwin,” I said, bowing slightly. “Do you perhaps know what’s happening? Why is nobody leaving?”

  “Darian! The pleasure is all mine. Although the circumstances of our reunion couldn’t be less favorable.” Edwin replied, adjusting his spectacles. If he was at all surprised to see me, he didn’t let it show.

  “Something is preventing us from escaping, killing everyone who gets close to the gate," he then added while looking somberly toward the central hall and the strange protrusion at its far end.

  I couldn’t get a good look at it from so far away. But it kind of reminded me of an ancient theatre—the sort with the descending rows of stone benches, with the gate presumably at the very bottom.

  “What do you mean by something? Like a monster?”

  “Nobody knows what it is… Everything happened too quickly. We were too far away to see anything, but from what I was told, all those who stepped onto the gate platform died a gruesome death, disappearing without a trace.”

  “Doesn’t it mean they simply passed the gate?”

  “No, the novices who saw it said they never even reached the gate. However, since then, everyone has been too scared to make another attempt, so they all just linger around the platform and wait to see who makes the first move.”

  ‘Oh, great! Yet another daunting mystery, just what I needed…’ I thought with a frown.

  But while I was slowly digesting the grim news, Tristan picked this exact moment to jump into the conversation. “You dare to ignore me? Didn’t you hear me the first time, peasant?”

  I sighed, realizing I wouldn’t be able to avoid the noble boy any longer. So, I reluctantly turned to face him. “First of all, nobody is keeping your fiancé; she can leave whenever she wants. Perhaps she simply found your company as insufferable as I do.”

  “What?! How dare you make such vile implications, you mongrel! Lady Mirabelle had always greatly enjoyed our outings, isn’t that right, my lady?”

  The lady in question didn’t respond. However, by looking at how Mira seemed to wish to be anywhere but here, I seriously doubted that. Still, I decided not to comment on it so as not to aggravate the noble idiot any further.

  For a moment, Tristan looked like he wanted to throw himself at me, but then he seemed to remember the crushing defeat he suffered the last time we fought and thought better of it.

  Instead, he simply snorted and ostentatiously turned around, saying. “You should count yourself lucky, peasant, that right now I have more important matters to attend to than to deal with your insolence! Come, my lady, let’s seek out a better company elsewhere.”

  He then grabbed Mira by the arm and gave Edwin a meaningful look as if asking him to pick a side. But Edwin was busy looking the other way, pretending like he didn’t see it.

  “As you wish…” Tristan mumbled under his breath. He shot me one last hateful glare, and then he and Mira were gone.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I briefly followed them with my eyes, watching as they disappeared into the surrounding crowd, and couldn’t help but sigh.

  I had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I was glad to be rid of Tristan’s suffocating presence. Dealing with him was somehow even more tiring than fighting the whole menagerie of magical constructs.

  But I was also sad to see Mira go. I didn’t know her for long, yet during the course of the Test, I became quite fond of the shy girl. She didn’t talk much, but that was probably why I found her company so enjoyable.

  That said, there was nothing I could do about it. I had no intention to meddle with noble arrangements, especially if it involved that baffoon Tristan. Because, despite his haughty demeanor, he was quite strong, meaning he must have come from a pretty powerful legacy family.

  I was already in hot water with one noble house, so the last thing I needed was for rumors that I tried to steal someone’s fiancé to start flying around.

  I shook my head, wanting to return to my previous conversation with Edwin, but then my eyes widened as I remembered something. ‘Oh! I forgot to give Mira her half of the tokens!’

  For a moment, I wanted to run after them, but I stopped myself, realizing that in Tristan’s eyes it would probably look like I was trying to impose myself on Mira.

  Still, I was a bit worried about how she would now complete the trial without tokens. ‘Well, whatever, her noble overprotective fiancé can take care of that…’ I thought in the end.

  ‘So, where were we? Ah, the invisible monster…’ I turned back over to Edwin, who, as pragmatic as he was, probably reasoned he had a much better chance of seeing this test to its successful end with me than with Tristan.

  “Alright,” I said, “Any guesses on what it is, Edwin?”

  He frowned, rubbing his chin. “Could be anything, really. Perhaps a hidden trap, or a magical construct that can turn invisible.”

  “But?” I eyed him with a raised eyebrow, noticing his troubled expression.

  He sighed as he adjusted his spectacles. “But from all I heard, I think it also might be a Wraith.”

  “Wraith?” I asked, giving him a confused look. This was the first time I had heard about such a monster, and from the sound of it, I imagined it wouldn’t be anything pleasant.

  However, before I could ask him to elaborate, he quickly shook his head, adding. “But that is impossible. Wraiths are too powerful and horrid to be placed into a test intended for first-years. Although nothing here has been ordinary, so far,” he sighed.

  Hearing this, I froze as a disturbing thought entered my mind. ‘Is this because of me?’

  Since there were no Masters with us, I came to believe there had to be some control spell in play that conjured the challenges and kept track of our points.

  But if this said spell was conjuring the challenges based on our current abilities, then it seemed simply too harsh. From what I heard, it looked like the others were barely able to overcome the challenges even after teaming up, and yet many have failed nonetheless.

  I knew I wasn’t the typical student, and that my abilities were leagues above what was considered normal. Still, I had so far managed to fool my classmates and the Masters’ into thinking I wasn’t anyone extraordinary.

  However, if the illusory realm could somehow scan my soul and take my real ability into account, didn’t it mean it was because of me that everyone else had to suffer, because I raised the average difficulty for everyone?

  I shuddered at the thought, hoping no one else noticed anything strange. I certainly didn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.

  “Well, I guess there’s only one way to learn more…” I then said, bringing our little discussion to an end.

  There was no point in further guessing. The only way to gain more information was by exploring the gate itself, and since nobody else was willing to do it, it had to be me.

  Don’t get me wrong. I would love nothing more than to just sit back and let someone else figure it out.

  But given that no one else was willing to give it a shot and that I felt at least partially responsible for how the test turned out, I took a deep breath and slowly made my way toward the far end of the central chamber, while being followed by countless eyes of other students.

  ‘First, let’s see if it’s a trap,’ I thought, still hoping that Edwin’s disturbing hypothesis was just that - a far-fetched guess.

  So, to test this, I immediately sent a gust of wind into the theater-like protrusion.

  If there were any hidden pressure plates or tripwires, this should have triggered it. However, there was no reaction.

  There was still the possibility that it would only react to a living being, but then the trap would have been magic in nature. However, I couldn’t sense any traces of essence under the floor or behind the stone steps themselves.

  Still, I could feel something. It was faint, only slightly above the ambient essence, and I couldn’t determine the source. It was like it was nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

  Furthermore, the whole platform gave off an ominous feeling, and I couldn’t help but admit that maybe, just maybe, there might be some truth in those wraith talks after all.

  But to test that, I would have to step onto the platform itself, because the essence was somehow contained within the theatre, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t activate until I was within its range.

  ‘Alright, let’s see this through…’ I thought before taking a deep breath and stepping over the platform’s boundary.