Deep within Iketerite Academy, near the Magic Engineering Institute's garden, stood a magnificent Gothic Revival building. The marks of time covered its red-brick walls, and history had settled within it like dust.
"Lanchi, have you heard?"
"Heard what?"
Chatting as they always did, Lanchi and Hughberlian entered the familiar Magic Engineering Institute Old Liberal Arts Building.
"You haven't been to the Sage Institute these past two days, so you wouldn't know. Everyone's talking about how Dean Loren and Knight Commander Juliana have been contacting each other so frequently lately. Today, she contacted him again while he was teaching. Apparently, she was planning to come to Ikelite herself to see him. Dean Loren went pale on the spot and promised her that no more students from the Yarolan Kingdom's Academic Visiting Group would have any accidents. Only then did Knight Commander Juliana cancel her trip to the Hutton Kingdom for the time being."
"Dean Loren answered Communication Magic during class, and they didn't even dock his pay?"
"Why is that what you're focusing on...?"
The two stepped into the area on the second floor occupied by Professor Bora Ao's Research Workshop. Amid the faint hum of machinery and the murmurs of Magic Artisans absorbed in their laboratory work, they suddenly spotted a familiar figure coming downstairs around the corner.
"Lanchi, Hughberlian."
Frei still wore his sunglasses halfway down his nose, giving him a slightly rakish air. He soon reached them and greeted them.
Ever since returning from the Shadow World, the three of them had mostly been doing their own things.
Lanchi and Hughberlian had more important matters to attend to, while Frei had been helping the president handle Student Union affairs.
"Were you two talking about Dean Loren just now?"
Before seeing Lanchi and Hughberlian, Frei had caught a little