Leizelt, a town for commoner mages.
Surrounded Starlight University, it lay in an unknown corner of the world.
It was unusual, yet still peaceful, with a daily routine of its own.
This routine was familiar to Fatenai Wisdom—or, rather, Fatenai Frayton.
Morning.
The changes between day and night brought about by Rose Month belonged to Rose Month alone. Each day's life belonged to its owner and shouldn't be disturbed. Guided by this belief, Leizelt's shops opened each morning at their usual hours, whatever the weather. On the wooden sign outside, fragrant brown-black ink slowly shifted, changing "Closed" to "Open."
The spice shop in Leizelt looked much as it always did. Inside the wooden building, an old man sat at a wooden table by the door. The furnishings consisted of row upon row of cabinets, each divided into wooden cubbies holding powders of varying fineness.
The old man by the door was indeed very old—his skin had enough wrinkles to trap several sheets of paper. They made his eyes hard to see, while a white-and-gray beard covered half his face.
He sat motionless, with nothing to do. Even when the door opened and a cloaked girl walked in, he barely stirred.
"Go right ahead," the old man said lazily, sounding a little displeased that her arrival had interrupted his daydreaming.
She was a regular customer these days, a Starlight University student who went out on the pretext of buying things for a professor. She had platinum-blond hair and an unusually polite manner.
First: Pick up the daily green box from Old Jerry's spice shop.
Fatenai silently recited the list of errands she had been following for a week. Without hesitation, she searched through the wooden cubbies until she found the green box in the corner.
The old man was just as unhurried when she paid. Fatenai waited patiently until she had collected what she needed, then quietly headed for the next place.
Second: Get the latest custom order from the gem shop.
A woman in multicolored mage robes worked in the gem shop, unlike most of the mages Fatenai had met. She wasn't particularly warm, and wore her robes simply to please herself.
Third: Get the first bouquet from the flower shop that had been dusted with a traveler's road dust.
Fatenai never worried that arriving late would affect her judgment. The flower shop didn't like to open early; under ordinary skies, it would be close to noon.
Fourth: Ask the first old man to appear on the street corner what he had said to his wife first that day.
Fatenai had once wondered whether the old man's wife had already passed away, if he was as old as the man at the spice shop.
Leizelt's daily life continued as always, and so did Fatenai's. A platinum-haired girl now walked among them, but her politeness caused barely a ripple.
The commoner mages weren't curious about her arrival. They didn't even ask her about it.
Fatenai quickly grew accustomed to the place, and never asked them unnecessary questions.
Afternoon.
"Give me the bottle with the Balo Flower." In the corner belonging to Alfie's, at the top of the teaching building, Lyteta stood by a table and gave Fatenai an order.
Lyteta pinched a plant leaf in one hand and tapped the table with the other. A moment later, she turned her attention to the materials on it.
Lyteta's appearance was surprising, too. She dressed elegantly, putting on mage robes only when she was conducting experiments. Her thick-lensed glasses, movements, and expressions all gave her a casual air.
Lyteta's laboratory was in a corner of the teaching building, suggesting that she might be an unsuccessful mage, or perhaps an apprentice. Fatenai had no way of knowing. All she knew was that the room had probably been intended for "temporary use." But Lyteta had piled instruments and materials in various places without any intention of sorting them, giving the laboratory a homely feel that made it seem anything but temporary. In practice, this made things very inconvenient for anyone working there. How could anyone tell what was in all those "piles of junk"?
Especially when they had to search through glass jars of different sizes for the right item. The jars had simple labels, and the labels themselves were just as brief.
Fatenai had been sitting on the wooden chair nearest the door, reading a book she had permission to borrow—something about basic magic or an illustrated guide to potion-making. When she heard Lyteta speak, she answered and picked up a black glass bottle from the nearby table, then carried it over to Lyteta's.
"You already knew I needed Balo Flower?" Lyteta raised an eyebrow, surprised at how quickly Fatenai had found it.
"You've been using a lot of it lately, so you put it somewhere easier to find," Fatenai replied.
"Forest Hunter's background certainly makes you suited for this. You're pretty sharp, too," Lyteta remarked casually. Still wearing her absent-minded expression, she used a pair of tweezers to take out the Balo Flower as she spoke.
"The things you use often are all kept in the same place," Fatenai said softly.
As far as Fatenai was concerned, helping Lyteta find things required no special skill. She only had to look in the places Lyteta used most often and retrieve whatever she needed.
That was all.
The work was more like keeping a casual mage company, dressed in familiar noble attire.
"Work's over for today." Fatenai returned to her original spot and waited quietly. When Lyteta finally spoke, she casually ended the day's work, pulled off her mage robes, and took off her glasses.
Fatenai nodded. After watching her leave, she did a little cleaning.
Her work here was done.
The dark, empty building made the teaching halls feel a little eerie.
Fatenai quietly walked across from the room used as a laboratory. There was a small door there. Opening it revealed a staircase leading upstairs—to an attic that had been there for some time.
The space was too large for its sparse furnishings: a bed and a table. Outside the window, there was nothing but endless darkness.
A short day.
Evening.
Clang—!
Fatenai's sword pointed toward the window. She stopped practicing and let go; the sword fell to the floor.
After washing up downstairs, she could do some light reading and review... Fatenai frowned as she repeated the actions that had become ingrained in her mind.
This was her routine.
It was the same, even in different places.
Morning.
Noon.
Evening.
Day after day.
Before you continue