Claire fought back the urge to yawn as she walked through an imaginary garden. Even knowing that it was just a fabrication, she lazily touched the dew-covered leaves and traced her fingers across the accompanying flowers. Some of the once bright-yellow nightshades had already swollen with large green fruit. It would still be some time before they finally ripened, but that didn't stop the rabbit that polluted her dreams from picking them and digging right in.

Having seen through her true form in Aurora's mirror, Claire found the cottontail's habit to be nothing short of absurd. She didn't even have a mouth to eat things with, let alone a digestive tract capable of absorbing the accompanying material. It was truly a wonder where the things disappeared to. Claire had tried to sniff out the truth during their shared meals, but she had yet to arrive at an answer.

In either case, the lyrkress continued to walk, wandering through the imagined realm until she spotted an out-of-place door. The peculiar construction affirmed that it was taken from the phantom's realm.

Though she knew that he was long gone, Claire grabbed the doorknob and twisted it open. A distorted space awaited on the other side. It was fragmented to the point of complete incoherence. There were a thousand glass pieces hovering in an otherwise lightless abyss, each a small piece of the room that had once served to contain him.

Her body distorted as she stepped inside. Her ankle was upside down and behind her. Her nose was far beneath her, right next to her right big toe, almost a full twenty meters away.

And yet, she felt no different.

It was only the visual aspect that had been thrown into disarray, used to hide the fact that she was standing in the usual space and in front of the usual device. Neither headhydra nor the phantom were present, but the magical box was glowing, flickering as it projected its light upon the world around it. When she looked at the screen, she saw herself, standing in front of something that vaguely resembled a book.

Claire walked over to the couch and picked up the so-called controller. But curiously, she found that she was no longer pictured on the device. Only as she backpedalled did she appear again.

Keeping an eye on the television throughout, she slowly stepped around the broken space and stopped once her stand-in stood directly in front of the blinking symbol. There didn't seem to be any noteworthy objects in the space around her. Hell, she could barely tell where she was, but she was certain that there was some sort of overlap.

She turned her eyes on her surroundings and inspected them, carefully reading the flow of magic. Perhaps, she reasoned, it was simply hidden in a pocket dimension like the one that Sylvia kept in her tail. But no matter how hard she looked, Claire found nothing of the sort. The space was too broken to keep any secrets. In the dead phantom's realm, everything was already laid bare.

Shrugging, the snake-moose turned around and made for the door again, only to stop as she had a sudden idea. Lifting the controller with one of her vectors, she depressed the button indicative of a confirmation.

The world spun into motion as soon as the impulse made its way through the wire.

All of the various pieces began to swirl about, mixing and mingling and melding as one. In the end, she was left in total darkness. An endless, infinite abyss.

When she reached out into the space in front of her, she found her fingers wrapped around an invisible object. It morphed as she touched it and took on the shape of a scroll. And then, it vanished, fading into particles of light as the world was suddenly reassembled. The pieces slotted back into place to form the room again, or at least something that vaguely resembled its shape.

Perhaps, if she remained in the space, Claire might have been able to further repair it, to piece together the still-shattered realm that lay beyond the window. But she couldn't be bothered.

The room alone was enough. He didn't need a world-sized mausoleum.

Smiling softly, she pulled her key from her chest, stuck it into the nearest door and leapt into the darkness.

For a while, that was all there was.

Globs of black mush filled the space around her. Like chunks of half-melted wax, they slid down the ever-shrinking walls that made up the cylindrical corridor. Until they suddenly vanished.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing within the painting that Flux had shown her, oh so long ago. The scene before her eyes was that of a tranquil village up high in the mountains. Buildings made of wood, straw, and bamboo that hung haphazardly from the ledges spread all around. The valley between them, the valley around which the village was built, was filled with billowing white clouds, thick enough to obscure the world below.

But Claire continued.

She fell straight through it, under the fluffy, looming spectres, through the caves beneath them, and past the planet's mantle. She dove through its core, enjoying the sensation of its fire against her imaginary body.

And then, finally, as she emerged from the other side, she found her destination.

She was back in the manor. Standing in her body at nine years old. Holding her mother's hand.

The exact memory that she had hoped to see.

Claire smiled in time with her younger self as she continued to look upon the city. She didn't know if it was just how she felt back then, or if the emotions were hers in the present, but she found a sense of wonder, a strange, unsuppressable joy as her eyes drifted from light to light. On that night, the world was much closer; the manor had descended from its usual perch for maintenance, and it would be parked in town, just fifty meters off the ground, for the better part of the week.

For Claire, it was one of the first times she'd ever spent a rainy night below the clouds, a rainy night directly above the city. Sure, it was a little chilly, but she couldn't stop her eyes from following the flames as they danced in the people's windows.

Back then, she found everything so new, so intriguing, and so incredibly entertaining. She wasn't without her hardships or responsibilities. But at the end of the day, she was born into one of the nation's most powerful and privileged houses. The challenges she knew were trivial, hardly worth considering to the Claire of the present.

Back then, she knew nothing but joy.

And yet, Claire found that her present self was no less happy.

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Suddenly blinking awake and sitting up, in her real body, she squeezed the fox in her arms and smiled.

The sun had already risen, hanging high enough in the sky for Claire to think that it was closer to noon than dawn. The camp was bustling with life. Chloe was up making breakfast, and the boys were out doing drills with Lana and Allegra. Claire was one of the only ones still in bed, with Arciel and Sylvia as her accompaniments.

For the lyrkress, it was a rare behaviour. She normally woke before dawn and beat the sun into the sky. But she'd just spent two straight weeks out in the wild. One night of rest would hardly spell the end of her. Though the training had spanned a mere twenty days, the repeated duels and encounters had given her a much better understanding of her abilities. With almost five hundred hours of straight fighting under her belt, she was finally confident enough to slow down and take a break.

The party had nearly made it to Cadria in the time that she was away. They were close enough that sometimes, they could see Amrinia at night. Visible from the mountains, it glowed in the dark, a veritable beacon upon the horizon, screaming for undue attention.

It was only three days away.

Soon, they would return to society and make their way south again so that they could show their enemies the fruits of their god-guided training. Claire almost couldn't wait. She was tempted to grab the planet and reposition it to make summer come faster—not that it was all that far in the first place. There was only about another month. The festivities and the accompanying duels would begin at the end of spring.

Setting her fox down in Arciel's arms—the furball was made to replace the tail that the squid had spent the night hugging—Claire changed into a casual blouse and made her way out of the tent.

Allegra called out to her immediately and tried to enlist her for something or other, but Claire ignored her and walked over to the firepit. Chloe was almost done cooking; she had already moved on to rapidly plating, sorting the dishes based on what each party member preferred.

"Good morning Claire."

"Good morning." Claire stretched her shoulders as she sat down by the fire. "How's training been?"

She didn't have much time to catch up with everyone the previous night; she had returned right as the party had prepared to hit the sack.

"It's gone about as well as you'd expect," said Chloe, with a forced smile. "I'm almost level 900 now, not that it really means much."

"It means you're almost an aspect."

"Somehow, I doubt that."

The maid passed a bowl to Claire before sitting down beside her. The hearty stew was garnished with a series of garlicky breadsticks. It was a little heavy for breakfast, but Claire didn't mind. It'd been weeks since she had last eaten.

"It's only a hundred levels," said Claire. She fished out a piece of meat and inspected it before taking a tiny bite. "Not bad. Where'd you get the herbs and spices?"

"You'd be surprised how much you can find lying around the forest," said the maid. "Well, not lying around exactly, but…" Claire tilted her head, prompting the maid to sigh. "Most of the fruiting plants were monsters, and the fruits were their lures. I got caught so many times."

"Oh," said Claire. "You mean like that?"

She pointed her tail at a remarkably ordinary-looking tree just outside the campground. It'd been scuttling its way closer for the past few minutes and stopping whenever it thought that there were any eyes upon it.

"Let me see." Chloe grabbed a nearby rock and whipped it at the maple-leaved pine, which ducked under the projectile and retreated back into the forest. "Yeah, just like that," said the maid, with a frown.

The behaviour was typical of the species. The strange monsters—technically, they were crustaceans that grew shells resembling trees—were ambush hunters, and they were only interested in prey that they could catch off guard and take down without a fight; one of their racial skills bestowed a tenfold damage boost if they were able to initiate a battle undetected. And as it was only in such a circumstance that they provided any decent experience, there wasn't much of a point in giving chase.

Claire kept her eyes on it for a few seconds before returning her attention to her stew. She slowly chewed through the carrots—apparently they were also monsters, but that was besides the point—and enjoyed the herbal notes mixed in with the savoury meat, until the moment of peace was abruptly interrupted.

She had expected it to shatter when the others put down their weapons and returned to the fire, or perhaps when Sylvia burst out of the tent, but instead, she heard a scream.

It came from a little further away, far enough that she struggled to make it out until she raised her ears. She'd thought that it was a panicked scream at first, but focusing on it confirmed that it was a battle cry. Worse yet, it was one she happened to know.

She turned her blouse into a full suit of armour as the man responsible for loosing it cut across the heavens. It took him only a second to go from two to zero and back to two mountains away. With his spear buried deep into a walking tree. The collision that followed shook the mountains, though that particular phenomenon was normal in the Langgbjerns. The local flora and fauna were highly destructive. It wasn't uncommon for a duel to level a sierra or three.

With his focus more on speed than strength, Durham wasn't quite that powerful. Still, the mountain was cracked right open.

Claire double checked her disguise as he continued to slug at his enemy, cursing herself all the while. She would've better hidden herself had she any earlier knowledge of the lowlife's proximity.

"What the hell was that?" asked Chloe.

"A passing moron," said Claire.

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means we should grab the others and leave."

"That doesn't really explain much of anything."

"It was a Cadrian warrior, unfortunately one I happen to know. Now hurry up. Let's go."

"Oh…" Chloe blinked. "I had a feeling they'd be up here as well. We should probably leave before they see us training and figure out what we can do, but we're not in that big of a rush, are we?"

"We are," Claire was about to set down her stew and return to the tent, only to click her tongue and shake her head as she sensed his gaze again. It was too late. He was already speeding towards the camp.

She was about to resign herself to interacting with him, when she had a sudden stroke of genius. Invoking Llystletein Authority, she crafted a safe zone that encompassed their surroundings. She was surprised by how easy it was to modify the barrier's values. Simply by wheedling a bit of divinity into its casting, she was able to reshape, expand, and strengthen the shield.

Chloe twitched when the invisible walls formed around them. She started blinking and looking around before she turned her eyes to Claire. "Did you do something just now?"

"Nope," said Claire.

"Are you sure? I could've sworn…" The maid briefly pursed her lips. "Must've been my imagination."

"Probably," said Claire. She opened a small hole in her helmet and sampled a small starchy block that tasted like a buttery potato.

She swallowed it right as Durham crossed the sky again. He spent a few seconds circling overhead before he finally found the camp again and made his way towards it. He aimed straight towards the flame as he descended, only to have his freefall cut short by the invisible dome. The unexpected impact didn't do much in the way of damage, but it threw him completely off kilter and left all four of his legs bent in random directions.

He tried to stand upright and correct his posture, but he tripped when he tried to steady himself and tumbled down the side of the barrier.

"I knew you did something," muttered Chloe.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Durham tested the shield by rapping his fingers against it before looking straight at Claire. Their eyes clearly made contact, but she ignored him and kept eating.

Recognizing her blatant lack of interest, he immediately started banging on the safe zone, but a slight modification to the spell ensured that not even his sounds were able to make it through; his shouting and screaming were completely for naught.

Sweet, sweet revenge for all the times that he'd annoyed her.

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