Yue was reminded of his prophecy about the dungeon that would open one night while he chased after werewolves. He glanced at Viktor with his hands behind his back as they waited for the platform to gather energy again. He decided to say something about it under the disguise of a last resort.

“In the case of a Dungeon opening...We should probably deal with it as leaders, right?” Yue murmured, he was suggesting that as the strongest members of the class it would be easier for them to clear the dungeon alone than with everyone else.

“That would be the way to get it done quickly, but it would leave the rest of them to take care of the werewolves alone..” Viktor murmured, thinking it through.

“In that case, I think William would want to live so he might take on a role to help defeat them and Mai isn’t weak...I think they’ll be able to hold out for the hour or two that it would take us to clear the dungeon.” Yue murmured, trying to think back to the prophecy. The rest of the class was injured in his prophecy and they were all right behind him. He hoped that they would be able to cast a protection spell or just tell them to go back to the town.

“So your core is probably above Ember…” Viktor murmured and looked over Yue’s body. He had deduced that from the amount of time Yue had estimated the dungeon would take. While Viktor could do it alone in less than an hour if he was taking it seriously, having two people would make the monsters in the dungeon more agitated and they’d go all at once so it’d take longer.

Yue flinched and gulped looking at Viktor.

“I-Is that really what you’re thinking of right now..?” Yue murmured, looking down.

He wanted to keep it a secret because only dangerous things seemed to come from people knowing his core type but he thought about how Viktor had already told him his own core type and kind of just wanted to tell him. Viktor probably wasn’t involved with the Asian governments so it was probably okay to tell him.

“You can use insight on me if you’re really curious..” Yue murmured shyly, deciding not to hide it. Viktor looked surprised before chuckling.

“Oh, so you did know that I have insightful eyes..” Viktor said and looked amused.

“It’s pretty obvious when you can tell flame purity with no assistance...” Yue murmured and blushed. He felt like he was forgetting something and then looked at the Operator who seemed like he had lost the timing to tell them that he was done. Yue blushed and motioned for him to go on and start. He regretted putting his fan in his trunk, his red cheeks were clearly visible to Viktor.

The platform started up and quickly teleported them. Yue picked up his bag as they got to the German hub and told everyone to get their bags as he tried his best to hide his red cheeks. He knew for sure that Mai had noticed because of her smug look and how she kept on nudging him.

 Viktor stayed on the platform, helping Elizabeth who had trouble lifting her trunk. He wasn’t really paying attention and did it on a whim but Elizabeth blushed bright red and twirled her hair with her fingers before taking her bag from him. She was going to say something but she noticed how Viktor was looking at Yue and that his eyes were glowing a bit and he had a baffled look on his face.

“Viktor?” Elizabeth asked, confused.

“Yes?” Viktor said after staring at Yue for a second longer, he looked at Elizabeth and tilted his head a bit.

Elizabeth wanted to protest as soon as she saw the clear difference in the expression he used when talking to Yue compared to now that he was looking at her. She didn’t get the chance to since Yue called for Viktor shortly afterward. She wanted to stop him but the weight of her trunk was a burden and didn’t allow her to catch up.

“We’re going on horses?” Yue asked, looking very confused. Information about the whole expedition was split between the two of them in a way that meant that Yue knew half of the information and Viktor knew the other half with little to no overlap. It was meant to increase teamwork since it wasn’t a captain and vice-captain situation but rather co-captains.

“There’s no road leading to town and renting multiple carriages would be difficult regardless,” Viktor explained, pulling out a map from his back pocket and showing Yue the location of the town they were going to compared to where they were.

“But the clerk told me there are only 13 horses?”  Yue asked, still confused.

“It was arranged by the teachers under the pretense that the girls didn’t know how to ride horses. They did make an exception for you though.” Viktor murmured, looking a bit awkward.

“Ugh...There’s no time to get at least one more horse is there?” Yue groaned, he was probably right to assume that Mai could ride a horse so one more horse would make it so he and Mai could just have Marianne and Elizabeth ride with them.

“Um… I’m sorry for listening in but I’m fine riding with Mr. Alexius..you don’t have to worry about me..” Marianne murmured as She and Mai walked up to him with a male student with ginger hair.

“Oh.. okay then...that still leaves the issue of Mai and Elizabeth though.” Yue murmured, a bit suspicious about the relationship between Marianne and Mr.Alexius.

Elizabeth managed to bring her trunk with her and went over to the group. She spoke up but was quickly cut off by Mai.

“I can just ride with V—!”

“Give me your horse Yue, I’ll go with Elizabeth and you’ll go with Viktor.” Mai said, cutting Elizabeth off on purpose as she predicted what she would say. 

Yue froze, attempting to keep his face stone cold as there were lots of eyes on him. He silently nodded and turned away resisting the urge to pull his sword on Mai who was clearly only doing this because she was invested in his relationship with Viktor. 

“L-Lets just go..” Yue stuttered and started to make his way outside while Mai tried to muffle her laughter and Viktor looked at him with amusement. Elizabeth looked angry and she wanted to say something about why Yue gets to ride with Viktor but exposing her attraction to Viktor would only make her embarrassed.

They got to the stables where their horses were waiting and everyone chose their horses and got on. Yue found himself invested in the curious relationship between Marianne and Alexius Farnsworth. Instead of sitting behind him in a ladylike manner on the horse, she sat in front of him, caged in his arms as he held the reins. 

“Hmm... I’m interested but I will keep my focus on the Viktor and Yue agenda.”  Mai said and patted Yue’s shoulders with a smile, she had also been observing.

“Shush!” Yue exclaimed, turning bright red as he noticed that Viktor was not very far away. 

Mai laughed and got on her horse after loading their luggage, she held out her hand to help Elizabeth get on but Elizabeth didn’t take it and tried to get on by herself. She was too stubborn to ask for help and it took her some time to get on because of this. Yue went over to Viktor after he noticed that most people were on their horses or getting on their horses. Viktor had chosen a very tall white horse.

“Do you want to sit in the front or the back?” Viktor asked.

Yue gulped, thinking it over he’d rather be in the back. Having Viktor’s arms around him would be too distracting. Just the thought made him blush.

“I’ll go on the back,” Yue said and was about to get on when he fully noted the height of the horse. The horse was much taller than him so he was ready to struggle a bit to jump on. Viktor had easily gotten on the horse since he was already taller than the horse.

Before he got his hands on the horse to hoist himself up, Viktor put his hands on his waist and lifted him onto the horse. Other than Mai who was over the moon, no one else saw them and so, no one else noticed Yue’s bright red face. Viktor didn’t seem fazed by it and grabbed the reins. Yue hid his face with his hands a bit as Viktor had the horse face the rest of the class.

“Let’s get going, follow us,” Viktor said and thanked the owner of the stables in German, before starting off.

Yue calmed himself down and held onto Viktor’s clothes as they started riding. They rode along for three hours straight before taking a break to stretch since some people were complaining. They stopped near a small river to get some water. 

Yue got off to get some water from the river to filter and store for later. Viktor rose the horse by Yue’s side as they moved away from the area where everyone was crowding to get water. There was a waterfall there so they spoke a bit louder so they could hear each other.

“You’re fluent in Austrian too right? The town is close to the border so they speak both!” Yue said as they started to think of what to do when they arrived in town.

“I’m fluent in most European languages, Yue. I've been to most of the bigger countries.” Viktor said and handed Yue his own water flask so he’d fill it up.

“Good for you,” Yue said and rolled his eyes playfully, filling the water flasks with water that he filtered with magic.

“The villagers will be pretty dependent on us, they don’t have many materials to work with and trade over the border is expensive so they can’t really protect themselves with silver weapons and things like that,”  Yue said and passed Viktor his flask.

“We should avoid using magic in front of them too much..” Viktor murmured.

“Well yeah but teaching some spells or alchemy to the ones with suitable cores wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Yue said and took a drink from his flask, he looked at Viktor expectantly. Viktor chuckled and leaned down to whisper in Yue’s ear.

“Are you gonna rely on my eyes alone or are you gonna help me? You’re mythic too..” 

Yue covered his ear and blushed, he jumped backward to create some distance. He almost spit out his water. He motioned for Viktor to quiet down. He was embarrassed that his voice in his ear made his heart race like that.

“O-Obviously I’ll help…” Yue murmured before he noticed Mai’s smug face in the distance from the corner of his eyes. He glared at her with bright red cheeks.

“L-Let’s go, we’ve been here long enough,” Yue said, embarrassed. He swiftly managed to avoid having Viktor lift him up by moving away and levitating himself a bit. Viktor had a look that almost seemed pouty after being avoided.

Three hours later, they finally started to be able to see the town. Yue moved a bit to look over Viktor’s shoulder and was shocked to see that the town seemed to already be in chaos. Since it was only noon, the town wasn’t being terrorized by werewolves although the creature attacking them did look similar.

“That’s…Um...Yue could you hold the reins..?” Viktor said with an unsettled tone. Yue nodded and took the reins only to be completely shocked as Viktor jumped off and kept the pace of the horse for a bit before drawing his sword and going even faster than the horse.

The creature attacking the village people was around 7 feet tall and like a human covered in fur. Everyone had thought that it was maybe a strange kind of Werewolf that went out at noon but Viktor was certain he knew what it was. He got to town way faster than Yue did on the horse.

Viktor slashed at the creature, immediately decapitating it. The villagers looked shocked and amazed at how easily Viktor killed it but Viktor didn’t really pay attention to them. He tapped the severed head of the creature and made it face him.

“I didn’t think these things existed outside of Russia..” Viktor murmured in Russian, he sighed and cast a spell on it to burn the body and head to avoid attracting any other creatures.

Before the villagers could thank him or even really say anything, Yue arrived and jumped down from the horse. He was confused and worried.

“What in the world was that?” Yue asked, trying to hide that he had been very worried when Viktor jumped off the horse.

“It was a Chuchuna¹A Bigfoot/ Yeti looking creature with dark fur covering their body but with a human-like face, also known as an Almas in Mongolia...It’s a weird human-like creature that eats human flesh..I’ve only ever seen them in Siberia and around Central Asia..I didn’t think they’d be here..” Viktor murmured and cleaned off his sword with a handkerchief that he later burned.

“Let’s just focus on taking care of the injured townspeople as everyone gets here,” Yue said as he noticed the Villagers.

Viktor nodded and turned to them, speaking in German. “We’re from the Academy of Magic Arts, we’re going to be dealing with the Werewolves that come to town and helping you out.” 

The Village Chief went over to them and thanked them profusely as he oversaw the people that Yue was using magic to heal.

“That creature, Have you seen them around here before?” Viktor asked the Village chief after telling the rest of the class to start helping clean up the mess the Chuchuna had made and to help heal the Villagers.

“Some hunters said that they are coming from the forest like the werewolves are but that there probably aren’t many of them since the werewolves are taking their prey.” The Village Chief explained.

“Hmm...We’ll deal with those too then...They’re more dangerous when they’re hungry like that..” Viktor murmured.

The group was quickly welcomed by the villagers after the commotion was dealt with. Yue and Mai did feel a bit awkward since they could feel the prying looks of the villagers. They were probably surprised by their looks. They felt lucky that they didn’t really know German since they finally got a break from being able to understand people’s comments and whispers. 

Viktor on the other hand was exhausted just listening to the whispers. He almost wanted to say ‘no they actually don’t look alike at all’ or ‘no their eyes aren’t weird’ but he was busy translating for Yue who was asking questions about the village's weapons supply.

“We don't have a blacksmith in town, we usually have to go to merchants and other towns to get new weapons, we can’t get too much though, they get expensive..” The Village Chief said and looked a bit ashamed.

“Hmm… Ask him what he’d think about us teaching basic magic spells to people with proper core types..” Yue said to Viktor after hearing his translation.

Viktor asked the question to the Village Chief but he had to explain a bit about how certain people can use magic and certain people can’t.

“I worry that no one in this little town will be able to use magic...But you can check if you wish..” The village chief answered and thanked them profusely once more.

Yue and Viktor walked around town, essentially using insight on practically everyone to see who had a good core.

“I mean a Wood core isn’t terrible..” Yue murmured noting how other than paper/dirt cores everyone in town only had Wood Cores. Wood cores were the second weakest cores.

“Teaching them attack spells might end with something on fire though..” Viktor murmured, looking around.

Yue suddenly gasped and pulled Viktor’s arm, pointing at a girl with short bob length blonde hair who had a basket of herbs in her hands. She seems to be only around 12-13 years old and was clearly surprised when Yue pointed at her so suddenly with such an excited look. She also looked shocked as she saw Yue was essentially holding Viktor’s arm against his chest.

“Silver!” Yue said with a bright smile. He looked at Viktor and noticed how instead of looking at the girl he was looking at him. Yue didn’t know why Viktor had such an odd look on his face and he didn’t really care, he dragged Viktor over, holding his hand as they went toward the girl.

“Hello, I am Yue,” Yue said in German with a smile. He then looked at Viktor to essentially say the rest for him since he didn’t know how to explain in German.

“My name is Viktor Ivanov...We wanted to know if you want to learn how to use magic?” Viktor said after clearing his throat a bit.

Yue realized that he didn’t introduce himself with his ‘full name’ as he probably should’ve. He had gotten too excited and caught up in the town’s home-y vibe. He decided that it probably didn’t matter and that no one was going to figure anything out just from that.

“Magic?” The little girl asked, her eyes gleaming a bit.

“You have a core type that will allow you to learn magic, in order to help the town we’re offering to teach people,” Viktor explained and smiled.

“Would you like to learn?” 

The girl nodded profusely and Yue smiled softly, he figured that they had come to an agreement. Viktor told the little girl that they’d start the next day and asked for her name.

“My name is Frida!” The girl said with a smile.

Frida waved at them as they went their separate ways, she had to bring the herbs she had harvested home and Viktor and Yue had to see if they could find anyone else with a good enough core.  They looked for a while but they didn’t actually end up finding anyone else.

“I guess we’re just going to be teaching Frida…” Yue sighed as they started walking to the inn where the class was staying.

The boys were all staying in two of the rooms and the girls were staying in one room. Yue and Viktor had their own separate rooms. Usually, the leaders stayed in the same room but since Yue was a ‘girl’, they ended up in separate rooms. 

Yue and Viktor had to go around the rooms and tell them to go to sleep even though the sun wasn’t even down. They could only sleep for a limited amount of time before sunset because the werewolves would come out at night. Yue felt bad for the girls who were already trying to sleep, it was obvious that they felt uncomfortable sleeping partially in uniform.

“Sleep well..” Yue whispered before closing the door and walking over to his own room.

“Don’t oversleep.” Viktor chuckled as he walked past Yue to get to his own room. Yue blushed and rolled his eyes as he entered his room. 

“My sleep schedule is gonna be so messed up after this expedition..” Yue murmured as he took his hairpin out so he could sleep more easily. He set his swords down on the bedside table and took off his jacket and boots before letting himself fall down on the bed.

He stared up at the ceiling for a while. Being in a small town like this reminded him of his childhood a bit. His master usually avoided big towns when they were traveling so places like these felt more like home than most. Yue sighed and closed his eyes, trying to avoid thinking about the past and things that would make him sad. 

—

After only sleeping around 2 hours, Yue woke up and immediately got ready as he saw the sun was beginning to set. He yawned as he put his hair up into a ponytail, his hairpin was still inserted into his hair. After getting his swords he left the room, stretching a bit.

He had been secretly hoping that he made it before Viktor did but the two of them opened their bedroom doors at the same time. Viktor looked the same as he did before their nap except his hair was tied back in a loose ponytail. Yue sighed whilst Viktor just smiled and they both went on to knock on the doors of their classmates to call them out. 

It took some time  but everyone woke up and went to their patrol positions. Viktor and Yue were standing at the forest entrance as the sun started to show its last little bit of light.

“There’s going to be a lot of them..” Yue murmured, there was an ominous feeling washing over the town as the sun showed its last little bit of light.

“We wouldn’t be on an expedition here if there weren't a lot of them...The regular classes can deal with werewolves, there’s probably something more to this..” Viktor said and unsheathed his sword.

Yue sighed and quietly closed his eyes, he took a deep breath and started using night vision. He unsheathed his rapier and braced himself. This would probably be a very long night.