A few guards tried to grab me, but I slipped past them before they could stop me. I raised a hand toward the window, but I was still too far away to reach it. The mark near the window taunted me for half a second before I realized I had no way to get up there directly.

So I changed my class to Warrior and used Grave Step while looking upward.

Fifteen mana vanished instantly.

The spell pushed me upward into the air just enough to give me the height I needed. I used that momentum to trigger Shadow Leap immediately after, and my body turned into black smoke once again.

I reappeared on the windowsill right beside the man.

Before he could even understand what had happened, I kicked him hard in the face. He stumbled backward into the room, and I jumped in after him. The room itself was a mess. Blood covered the floor, the bed sheets were ruined, and everything looked torn apart as if someone had fought here for far too long. There were two beds against the wall, a small desk with an open drawer, and a chair knocked onto its side near the corner.

"H-how could you cast..." the man began before choking on his own words.

I gripped my dagger tighter and glared at him.

"You fucking bastard," I said. "Come here!"

The man hurled a fireball in my direction, and I threw myself down instinctively to avoid it. The blast flashed past where my head had been a second earlier, and before I could fully recover, he shoved the door open and rushed into the hallway.

I lunged after him, nearly slipping on the blood still pooled across the floor. My hand caught the doorknob just in time to keep me from falling flat on my face, and I stumbled out into the corridor after him.

The girls’ dormitory erupted the moment I appeared.

Several girls were standing in the hall in various stages of shock, some in their bathrobes, some in loose nightclothes, all of them staring at the bloodstained intruder sprinting through their dormitory like their worst nightmare had suddenly come to life. A few of them froze in place, too scared to move, while others backed away quickly, hands over their mouths.

"Stop him!" I shouted as I chased after him. "Stop him!"

No one moved fast enough to help. Most of them were too terrified to do anything except stare, and the ones who did start yelling only made the hallway feel even more chaotic.

"There’s a man inside the dormitory!"

"Call the teachers!"

"Help, someone help!"

I kept running after him, then outstretched my hand and cast Shadow Leap again. The black smoke gathered ahead of me, showing the path I would take, and I committed to the spell. My body dissolved into that dark haze and shot forward through the corridor.

Then the spell ended.

The momentum from my sprint carried over, and when I reappeared, I was still moving too fast to stop properly. The man had turned left at the corridor, but I kept going straight and slammed shoulder-first into the wall instead. The painting hanging above me shook loose and crashed down onto my head.

"Ah... shit."

I pushed myself upright, rubbed the side of my head, and turned right to keep following him. He was farther ahead now, and I did not want to waste another Shadow Leap unless I absolutely had to. If I ended up facing him directly, I wanted to keep some mana in reserve.

He was heading straight for one of the windows.

The moment I saw his body tense, I knew exactly what he was planning.

He was going to jump.

If I let him get away, catching him again would be a nightmare. I could not let that happen.

"What is happening!" one girl screamed from somewhere behind me. "Stop him!"

"There’s a man in our dormitory!"

"Call the teachers!"

"Help!" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

The man covered his face with both hands and leapt toward the window, but I was closer now. I grabbed his leg just before he could fully get away and yanked him backward hard enough to pull him off balance. He managed to stay on his feet for a second, then spun around and grabbed my shoulder, shoving me hard into the nearest door.

The door burst open, and both of us fell back into the room.

A girl who had clearly been changing or preparing for bed let out a scream the moment she saw us crash inside. She was wearing only a bathrobe, and she yanked herself backward in panic before sprinting out of the room without looking back once.

"Stupid brat!" the man snapped at me.

"Fucking—"

He swept my legs out from under me before I could finish. I hit the floor hard, and he came down with me. Before I could get back up, he straddled me and raised one hand over my face. A fireball began forming in his palm immediately, the orange glow brightening until I could feel the heat against my skin.

Oh, fuck.

The fireball shot forward.

I reacted without thinking and cast Shadow Leap in pure panic. My body turned into black smoke again, and a heartbeat later I reappeared above him, losing the spell’s momentum and falling backward onto the nearest bed.

The mattress caught me awkwardly, and I groaned while rolling off the top bunk. The pillow and blanket were half-bunched underneath me, and I kicked them aside before jumping down to the floor.

The man was gone.

The door was still moving slightly inward, showing he had just escaped through it again.

"Oh, you are not getting away."

I rushed back into the hall and looked in both directions, trying to find him again. The girls nearby were staring at me with frightened eyes, clearly not sure whether I was the danger or the one trying to stop it. The corridor split ahead of me, and I had only a second to decide which way he had gone.

Then I heard a loud scuffle from the room I had just left.

I turned back immediately and ran inside again.

The man had hidden under the bed after all. He was just crawling back out when I saw him, and before he could stand properly, he bolted toward the window once more.

"Fuck!"

He smashed through the glass and dropped to the street below.

Teachers and guards outside immediately raised their weapons and shouted for him to stop, but the man did not even slow down. He reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and threw it against the ground.

A magical circle lit up beneath him at once.

It had a star-shaped pattern in the middle, surrounded by runes etched into each point of the design. The shape glowed brighter and brighter for several seconds until the entire area flashed white.

Then the light dimmed.

When my eyes adjusted, the man was gone.

He had vanished completely.

No body.

No trace.

Just empty ground where he had been standing a second earlier.

I stared down at the street below, then let my head dip forward as the realization hit me.

"Ah, crap..."

ꨄ︎ꨄ︎ꨄ︎

Professor Kroua was keeping me in the same room where I had watched the masked man jump out of the window. Apparently, until the guards finished securing the dormitories and every student returned to their room, I was not allowed to leave. It was nearly one in the morning now. Darkness had swallowed the academy grounds, and rain had started falling over Northwood only a few minutes earlier. The smell of blood still lingered heavily in the air, mixing with the cold scent of wet wood and damp stone drifting in from the shattered window.

I sat on the floor beneath the broken frame, my back pressed against the wall while droplets of rain occasionally slipped through the opening and landed on my shoulder. Across from me, Professor Kroua sat on the lower bunk bed with perfect posture, her hands resting neatly on her lap while her glasses reflected the dim lanternlight.

"Am I in trouble, Professor?" I asked quietly.

"Possibly," she replied without looking away from the window. "You cannot charge into the girls’ dormitory like some lunatic, even during a crisis."

"I thought I could catch him."

"You nearly broke your neck instead."

"Fair enough."

She exhaled through her nose and adjusted her glasses slightly.

"It does not help that the culprit wore a mask and concealed most of his body. If you had actually captured him, perhaps I could overlook your recklessness."

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked toward the bloodstained floorboards near the doorway.

"Jelda..." I muttered. "What happens now?"

"A formal investigation will be opened by the district captain," Professor Kroua explained. "However, most of the kingdom’s active resources are currently focused on the elf attacks inside the capital. Investigators, guards, and divine trackers have been reassigned all across Bildirweight District. Cases like this tend to move slowly unless someone important pushes for results."

"That sounds bad."

"It is bad," she replied. "A student was murdered inside one of the safest academies in the kingdom. People will panic. Parents will complain. Nobles will demand answers. And the guards will likely fail to find them."

I looked toward the broken window again while rainwater dripped from the cracked sill.

"She was just a girl," I muttered. "How did someone even get inside? Aren’t the dormitories protected?"

"They are supposed to be." Professor Kroua’s jaw tightened slightly. "Which means either the killer was exceptionally skilled, or someone inside made a mistake."

Before I could answer, the door suddenly opened.