Dawn arrived with the sound of military trumpets tearing through the air. Caelum opened his eyes before the others, as always. The first-year recruits stirred between yawns and curses, rubbing their eyes as they prepared for their first mission outside the academy.
Several months had passed.
The training had been as mediocre as Caelum expected. The commoners were taught poorly explained elemental magic—just enough to keep them from dying to the first enemy spell—while the nobles perfected advanced techniques in halls with marble floors. Nothing new. Nothing he hadn't seen before in another world, in another war.
He dressed with precise movements, adjusting the straps of his worn armor. The uniform smelled of rancid leather and sweat, but it was familiar. Like the old days.
The border village of Harken was nothing more than a handful of wooden houses huddled against the wind. Their mission was simple: protect a minor supply shipment passing through. A low-priority task, according to the instructors.
"The real supplies are taking another route, guarded by advanced students," explained one of the officers, a man with scars mapping his face like a chart of defeats. "You just need to make sure the bandits don't bother the villagers."
Caelum didn't need to hear more. It was a trap.
No one sent inexperienced recruits to a conflict zone without a reason. They were being tested. Or worse, they were being sacrificed.
The nobles, of course, took the best inn in the village, a two-story building with glass windows and a fireplace. The commoners scattered among stables and sheds. Caelum chose a corner near the forest, where the wind carried the sounds of the night.
Something smelled wrong.
It wasn't a metaphor. The air reeked of dried blood and rusted iron.
The other recruits soon relaxed. Evan shared a bottle of liquor with Kale, laughing at something Caelum didn't bother to listen to. Leah sharpened her sword with a focused gaze, but even she succumbed to exhaustion after a while.
Caelum didn't sleep.
He stood at the stable door, watching the forest. The wind whispered through the trees, carrying murmurs that weren't from the wind.
And then, he saw the lights.
Faint, flickering, like torches covered by cloth. Scouts.
Without a sound, he slipped into the thicket, his dagger already in hand.
They weren't bandits.
They were hunters.
Burly men, dressed in furs and light armor, moving with the precision of those who had spent years killing. Their weapons weren't chipped swords but sharp hunting knives, composite bows, poison-tipped arrows.
"...the nobles first," one murmured, wiping a blade with a stained rag. "Then, chaos."
"The message must be clear," replied another. "No one crosses the border and lives."
Caelum didn't need more.
They were assassins from the neighboring kingdom. And they were here to massacre the students and leave a bloody message.
There were no warnings. No heroic shouts.
Caelum simply acted.
The first died with his own dagger buried in his throat, too fast to scream. The second turned, but it was too late—a broken neck left him breathless.
The others reacted, forming a circle around him.
"Kill him!"
It was a slaughter.
Caelum moved like a specter, dodging arrows, deflecting knives, turning every enemy strike against them. One man fell with his own poison in his veins. Another screamed as his arm snapped at an unnatural angle.
Blood splattered the trees, the earth, his face.
He felt nothing.
Only the familiar echo of a voice in his mind: "This is for you, Alyssa."
When it was over, twelve corpses lay at his feet.
The last man, an older fellow with scars crisscrossing his face, gasped against a tree, trying to stanch the bleeding in his leg.
"W-Who are you?" he coughed, spitting blood. "You're... not a student..."
Caelum looked at him with empty eyes.
"No one important."
And he broke his neck.
The sun found Caelum still in the forest, cleaning his dagger on a corpse's tunic.
The recruits arrived shortly after, led by the trail of blood.
"By all the devils!" Kale paled at the sight of the bodies. "Did you... do this alone?"
Caelum didn't answer. He wiped the blood from his hands with a cloth and looked toward the village.
Lysara was there, watching him from a distance, her silver hair gleaming in the dawn light.
This time, there was no disdain in her gaze.
Only recognition.
And something else.
Fear.
The sun was high when Marcus, the group's leader, approached Caelum. He was broad-shouldered, with training scars marking his arms and a look that betrayed more experience than someone his age should have. His family was military, it was said. That explained why he wasn't laughing like the others.
"You," his voice was rough, like stones clashing. "How did you know they would attack?"
Caelum looked at him unhurriedly, wiping dried blood from his dagger with a rag.
"I saw lights in the forest," he said, not raising his voice, but everyone fell silent to listen. "One of them spoke before dying. If they didn't return in three days, a company of mercenaries would come."
Some recruits let out nervous laughs.
"Damn, just that!" said one, a burly commoner with bruised knuckles. "Together, we're like a battalion!"
Marcus didn't smile. His eyes locked onto Caelum, searching for something. And he found it.
"An experienced company," he murmured, low enough for only Caelum to hear. "Can tear a battalion of rookies apart."
Caelum didn't nod. It wasn't necessary.
Marcus turned to the others, his voice now sharp as steel:
"Dig trenches. Now."
The village transformed into a military camp in hours.
Crescent-shaped trenches protecting the weakest flanks.
Sharpened stakes hidden in the undergrowth.
Ambush points in the trees, where the best archers would hide.
Caelum watched the work with a mix of nostalgia and disdain. They were trenches. The same ones he had dug in another life, in another war. Only here, there were no machine guns, just swords and magic. But the death would be the same.
The recruits worked nervously. Some adjusted their armor poorly, others tripped over their own swords. They were green. Too green.
Marcus walked among them, correcting stances, barking orders. He was a good leader. Caelum admitted it silently. But not even the best leader could turn these kids into soldiers overnight.
It didn't matter. He wasn't here to save them.
Caelum ventured into the forest at dusk, searching for traces of the mercenaries.
He found something better.
Lysara emerged from the trees, dragging the corpse of a giant bear with a single clean cut across its throat. Her breathing was steady, as if carrying such a beast cost her no effort.
"For the villagers," she said upon seeing him, as if an explanation were normal. "The meat will last them weeks."
Caelum didn't respond immediately. He was reevaluating her.
In his world, killing a bear with a knife was a legendary feat. Here, this girl made it look like a warm-up exercise.
"Good technique," he murmured at last.
She looked at him, and for the first time, something like interest flickered in her green eyes.
"You have it too. Though you prefer the dirty work."
She meant the assassins. How he had killed them.
Caelum smiled, just slightly.
"Whatever works."
Lysara studied his face for another second, then continued on her way, dragging the bear like a sack of straw.
But Caelum had already understood.
In this world, experience wasn't enough.
Magic, supernatural strength—it all leveled the playing field in ways he didn't yet master. He'd been lucky with the assassins. If they'd been mages, if they'd been like Lysara...
He'd be dead.
That night, while the others prepared for the possible attack, Caelum sat apart, sharpening his dagger over and over.
He needed to learn magic. Real magic.
Not the basic tricks taught to commoners. Not the poorly explained formulas. Something lethal. Something that would put him on par with the monsters of this world.
And he knew exactly who to ask.
He lifted his gaze toward the inn where the nobles were staying. Toward where Lysara was.
She had answers.
And he would get them, no matter what.