The full moon hung high, and the brilliant stars shone in silence.
It was the dead of night; to be precise, whether within the space or outside it, the world was the same.
Lola Bell had not slept a wink all night.
When she was put to bed, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Once Aurora’s warm and steady breathing sounded at her ear, she quietly opened her eyes again.
She did nothing, just gazed at Aurora’s sleeping face like an infatuated fool, occasionally sneaking a restless rub against her lips as if stealing a forbidden kiss.
It was not her first time doing this—almost every night was the same. Each time, she would only stop right before Aurora was about to wake up.
She had thought she would be unable to extricate herself from her sister’s sleeping face again tonight, but it seemed that would not be the case.
A few uninvited guests had arrived outside the space, and they were getting closer to the location of the Holy Sword.
The moment Lola Bell sensed them, her gaze turned sharp.
The Holy Sword was being kept for safekeeping in Albert’s office. Usually, only Albert would come here; it was rare for three people’s presences to appear at once.
Moreover, it was the dead of night in the world outside the space as well. Anyone coming here at this hour certainly wasn’t just here for the scenery.
If Lola Bell’s true self was inside the space at this moment, she would probably have already gone outside to confront those three. But now, she was only a sliver of consciousness and couldn’t leave the space. All she could do, upon sensing the arrival of danger, was to activate the Holy Sword’s defensive magic.
She closed her eyes, and before her appeared a vision of the scene outside the Holy Sword.
In the pitch-dark office, a burst of girls’ chattering voices came from outside the door…
“I say… shouldn’t we just go back? If the Director catches us, we’ll definitely get expelled.” A somewhat frail-sounding voice came from outside the door, her tone trembling, seemingly very scared.
“We’re already here—what’s the point of going back! Besides, the Director has been busy with the reconstruction of the academy’s teaching building lately. She’s been running back and forth all the time and has hardly come to the office.” Unlike the previous girl, this voice was firmer, carrying the air of a pampered young lady.
“Let’s make it quick—just find the test papers and get out. I don’t want to fail the finals.”
Click.
The office door was opened a crack, and two pairs of bright eyes first peeked in from one side of the door.
One blue, one black, they scanned the office.
A fair hand suddenly gripped the edge of the door, and the half-closed door was pushed fully open.
A woman with neat, short purple hair stood outside the door. Unlike the other two, who were sneaking around, she strode boldly into the office.
“Shia! What if someone catches you swaggering in like that?!” the blue-haired girl hissed nervously.
“If there really was someone here, you two would have been discovered already with all your talking.” A cold voice came from the purple-haired girl. She glanced back at the two behind her, then headed straight in.
Seeing her almost at the desk, the other two followed cautiously.
“Hurry and look for our class’s test papers—they should be in the cabinet.”
The two rummaged through boxes and drawers, pulling out one test paper after another.
During this time, the purple-haired girl didn’t join the search. Instead, she sat idly in the office chair, rocking from side to side in boredom.
“B1… B2… B3—found our class’s!” The pink-haired girl with a ponytail suddenly shouted.
She pulled out a stack of test papers from the drawer, a sheet on top marked “Year 2, Class B-3”.
“Quick, find our test papers!”
The two began flipping through the stack one by one, finally pulling out test papers labeled Roseline and one labeled Nia.
“Found them!”
“Hurry, fix the wrong answers!”
They both pulled out pens and started scribbling corrections.
The girl called Shia, the purple-haired one, began to idly inspect the office to pass the time.
After glancing around, her gaze stopped at a corner.
“What’s that…”
A golden longsword lay in that corner, faint golden light rippling from it.
Her eyes brightened. To get a better look, she walked toward the corner.
To see in the dark, she cast a mid-level night vision spell on herself and the other two.
But as she approached the longsword, she found her night vision spell suddenly lost effect. The edges of her vision dimmed, leaving only the longsword before her still shining.
“Hey, Shia! We should go. If we wait any longer, your spell will run out!” The blue-haired girl called out in a low voice.
“What are you looking at, Shia?” The pink-haired girl curiously walked over to her. Following her gaze, she too saw the golden longsword.
“Wow, is this the teacher’s treasured artifact? It looks really valuable.”
“What are you staring at? Let me see too.”
The blue-haired girl stuck her head over as well, exclaiming in surprise.
“Whoa, that sword looks expensive! It looks even more valuable than the 10,000-gold longsword at my house!”
“No way, I have to touch it.”
The blue-haired girl reached out restlessly to touch the sword, but as she got closer, her vision suddenly went black.
“What’s going on?”
She looked around and saw only darkness. Only then did she realize her night vision spell had failed.
“Could this longsword actually dispel magic?”
The blue-haired girl seemed even more intrigued by the sword.
“Roseline, you’d better not touch it. I’m worried this strange sword might hurt you,” the pink-haired girl said with concern.
But the girl called Roseline clearly didn’t listen. She dismissed it, saying, “Come on, I don’t believe this sword will just chop people on its own.”
With that, she reached out, eager to touch the golden longsword.
“Don’t touch it.”
A sudden voice made Roseline instinctively pull her hand back. She looked at Shia, who had been staring for a long time, and asked nervously, “Wait, could it really chop people on its own?”
“I don’t know… but I can sense that this sword seems angry.”
“Angry? No matter what, it’s just a sword. How could it be angry?”
Roseline seemed unwilling to wait any longer. She reached out once more and, unable to resist, directly touched the golden longsword.
A burst of golden light suddenly erupted from the sword, illuminating the entire office.
And when the golden light faded, the three people in the office had disappeared, leaving only two test papers lying on the floor.