This morning, the sky no longer reeked of blood.
The early mist, thin like a burial shroud, draped over the forest—concealing every wound, every cry, every despair that had rotted in the dark.
The seven-day survival trial had officially ended.
A long chime echoed from afar—no one knew where it came from, as if the sound descended from the heavens, from the mouth of a nameless entity watching overhead.
The air grew heavy. Leaves fell without a sound.
From the bushes, the swamps, the rock crevices, the surviving students stumbled out.
One had lost a hand. Another, their mind.
Some laughed with tears in their eyes.
Some stared blankly, as if they had survived a nightmare—yet their souls were still trapped somewhere… in the forest.
Total: 700.
Now: only 200.
They gathered around an open clearing, where a stone gate etched with ancient runes stood ajar.
Ten examiners, clad in blood-red cloaks, awaited them.
No smiles. No sympathy. No welcome.
Only… roll call.
One student collapsed upon hearing their name—not from injury, but from the question echoing inside:
> "Am I still human?"
A noble burst into laughter, dragging behind him the severed head of a beast the size of a man—
as if to prove: he survived not through skill alone…
but because he was born to stand atop the corpses of others.
Gael Vernet didn't look at him. He only whispered:
> "Lyre… do you see this…?
Not a single noble died."
---
A door opened in midair.
Everything inside was a sterile classroom, soulless, as if built from hollow memories.
> "Congratulations. You've completed the first test: Survival."
An examiner spoke—his voice dry, like bones clattering together.
> "And next… will be the second exam."
A battered student raised their hand:
> "Why… why survival? Why did so many have to die?"
> "Because only death can separate humans from dirt."
> "You should feel honored. Those you buried beneath the mud… they were society's lowest tiers.
And your survival—means you're worthy to learn."
> "Because your existence is meaningless… until it can kill another."
> "This world has no need for the weak.
Death is not failure. It's proof… that you weren't cruel enough."
Another door opened—not to a classroom,
but to a blank white void.
No sound. No scent. No gravity.
---
Before each student appeared a black mirror—
not reflecting their image,
but their buried memories.
When Gael touched the mirror's surface, the world shattered.
Everything vanished—leaving only an endless spiraling hallway, forged from tens of thousands of burning runes.
The wind blew backward—not from the outside, but from within his chest.
It tore through his mind, stripping away layers of consciousness.
And then the past returned.
---
Gael was not born.
He was formed—from ash and despair in Duskmoor, an elemental extraction camp where children had no names.
He was once a "Mute Soul"—a slave forbidden to speak, to dream, to die.
Each morning, they were woken not by bells,
but by hammering on iron buckets—
not clocks, but chains.
Gael once tried to cry.
But there were no tears, only wind.
Cold wind stinging his eyes,
and no one sees wind—just like no one sees pain.
The wardens didn't beat or curse.
They smiled.
They didn't need violence.
Only time and silence were enough to break a will.
Gael was once taken to a room called the "Wind Drain Chamber."
There, they drove metal rods into the bones of his arms, forcing him to summon wind from within his blood.
The wind came—but it screamed, ripping his mind apart before it ever left his body.
Each use of power stripped away another layer of his soul.
One day, the wind rebelled.
The warden—a man with eyes like frozen lakes—was crushed in the air by the very wind Gael summoned.
No blood. No screams.
Only a soundless storm passing through—
and a twisted laughter echoing in Gael's mind:
> "What is freedom,
if not permitted madness?
---
BACK TO THE MIRROR
Gael knelt before the mirror.
Not from repentance—
but because the wind within him would not sleep.
In the mirror, Gael wasn't reflected—
instead, hundreds of versions stared back:
A Gael who died.
A Gael who killed.
A Gael who laughed.
A Gael drawing wind sigils in blood on the floor.
A Gael begging.
And a Gael with no face—
only a swirling void.
---
> Academy No. 45: Gael Vernet – Complete.
No applause.
No congratulations.
Only wind whispering through the classroom.
And in that brief moment—Gael realized:
> Every gust of wind in his heart…
was a soul with nowhere left to go.