Mai was very depressed as she ate dinner with Yue and Viktor in Viktor’s manor. Yue felt a bit bad while Viktor just chuckled as he watched. Mr. Anderson had officially revealed the expedition location to the rest of the class earlier that day and got a chorus of gasps and unhappy groans.

“Sorry, we didn’t tell you…” Yue mumbled.

Mai just groaned in response.

“Wyverns really aren’t that scary, they tend to keep to themselves,” Viktor laughed, “People just think they’re scary because they think they’re normal dragons.”

Yue smiled awkwardly at the mention of Dragons being scary and Viktor just chuckled at his expression.

“Why are they still a problem in Austria then?” Mai asked with a sigh.

“Because they can’t kill them. The Wyverns keep the monsters in the mountains and the forest in check. They can’t leave the area and go to the city because the Wyverns will swoop down and eat them.” Viktor explained and sipped some wine.

“Wait so what are we going there to do?” Mai asked, confused.

“We’re going to figure out why the Wyverns are so agitated,” Yue explained.

“They think it’s either mages doing taboo spells near the mountain or a dungeon starting to appear. We’re not allowed to enter the dungeon if it appears though.”

“Why not?” Mai asked.

“They didn’t tell us why they just said we can’t,” Viktor murmured, he was also quite curious about that but Mr. Anderson wouldn’t elaborate.

“It’s probably some interference from the mage association or something like that,” Yue said and shrugged.

“Well it means less work for us so I don’t mind,” Mai murmured.

—-

“My apologies Miss Yue, Miss Mai, I should’ve scheduled the engagement party at a different time...I didn’t think it’d last so long…” Marianne apologized when she saw Yue and Mai on their way to the room they would be teleporting from.

“It’s fine. We usually go to sleep late anyway.” Mai said and smiled at Marianne. Yue just nodded in response.

“I hope you find some use for my gift,” Yue said and smiled.

Marianne smiled and showed the jade bracelet on her arm.

“I don’t quite know how to use it but I’ll learn!”

“I wonder why Viktor didn’t come… Did he tell you anything?” Mai asked.

“Oh, he sent a gift with a message saying that he had a sudden visitor and couldn’t attend,” Marianne said with a confused look.

‘Sudden visitor…?’ Yue was very curious about who this visitor was, he figured it was family but the thought of it being a more troublesome guest annoyed him a bit.

When they got to the room with the teleport pad Viktor and some other students were already there. Yue went up to Viktor and immediately noticed how tired he looked. Yue and Mai both got home at midnight from Marianne’s engagement party yet the two of them didn’t look as haggard as Viktor who didn’t even attend so Yue was confused.

“Are you okay? Did you not sleep well?” Yue asked and raised his hand to Viktor’s face.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine though…” Viktor murmured and kissed Yue’s hand.

“Why didn’t you go to the engagement party? I thought you were going…” Yue asked and stared intently at Viktor’s expression.

“I just got busy with work. I started working on something in Belarus and I had to finish it.” Viktor said and yawned a bit. Yue was unsure about whether Viktor’s response was the truth but he decided to just accept it for now. He wanted to assume that, even if he’d lie to others, Viktor wouldn’t lie to him unless absolutely necessary.

“We should get going,” Yue said and pulled out his fan. Viktor smiled and had everyone gather and get ready.

“Well. Let’s get this expedition over with quickly.” Viktor said and went with half of the class onto the teleport pad.

—

“There are enough horses this time,” Viktor said with a slightly sad sigh. Yue just giggled and got onto his horse easily. They were getting onto their horses in the stables in a city around 10 kilometers from where they were supposed to be. The teleport pad where they had ended up was right in this city so they had to make a trip just like they had for Wolfsstadt.

Despite there being enough horses some people, like Marianne and Alexius and Ava and Alejandro, doubled up. Marianne and Ava didn’t know how to ride horses so they doubled up because of that.

“We’re going to be staying in a building in the forest near the mountains, we can’t camp out in the mountains because of mudslides and avalanches. We’ll have to leave the horses in the town nearby though.” Yue explained to the others as they started to ride out of the town.

They arrived at the town where they’d be leaving their horses after around an hour and started to walk into the forest. Viktor had a map of where the building was in the forest and he followed it as he led everyone.

They arrived at the building and Yue and Viktor gave everyone their bags and gave them the freedom to choose their own rooms.

Marianne and Alexius stared at each other for a bit with awkward looks as they walked down the halls.

“Geez just share a room already, just don’t be loud,” Walter whined and gagged jokingly as he walked between them.

“That’s—” Marianne murmured with an embarrassed look.

“There are only two couples here so I think it should be fine,” Walter said, “We’re all adults here anyway.”

Yue wanted to hope that Viktor hadn’t heard that but the arm on his waist said otherwise.

“This building was made for this y’know. It was made for groups of mages and the leaders would share a room.” Viktor whispered and kissed Yue’s cheek.

“There are other rooms…” Yue murmured and blushed bright red.

“Yes, Yes there are,” Viktor said but he didn’t let go and kept hugging Yue.

‘...He already knows I’ll give in…’ Yue thought and pouted a bit.

“You can’t rush me, Remember?” Yue said and elbowed Viktor a bit as he walked into the captain’s room.

Inside the room, there were two beds that were each just barely big enough for two people and two desks and a little lounge area, and two places to put clothes. The normal rooms had one bed and a desk and a small dresser. Yue almost worried for Marianne and if she’d really be fine sharing the room with Alexius, but the beds seemed to be the same in all the rooms so he wasn’t too worried. He was, however, a little worried for himself.

Viktor’s pleased smile didn’t help ease Yue’s nerves. They had slept in the same tent before but nothing was holding them back anymore so it was more nerve-racking to share a room now.

—

The class split into small groups and scouted out the area, marking trees with magic symbols as a way to make it so they don’t get lost. Yue, Mai, and Marianne were grouped together while Viktor was with Alexius and Walter. Viktor brought his group and other groups to scour the forest while Yue brought a few groups to check out the mountain.

Viktor kept a list of every monster the groups that came with him encountered in the forest. There weren’t many that were out and about during the day but they did encounter some.

Viktor heard some screams and immediately rushed out to their locations and saw a group that was struggling to fight a reindeer-like monster. One that seemed very familiar.

The monster was actually very easy to kill but something about its aggressive nature compared to the way it looked like a normal reindeer made it very scary and hard to fight. Viktor couldn’t even fault the group for being unable to kill it. He used a simple spell to kill it and walked over to it.

“These are edible y’know...I’m not really into the taste but some people like it,” Viktor murmured.

“Not interested…” One of the students who had been attacked murmured.

“I figured.” Viktor laughed.

-

Yue’s group wore the same sturdy boots that they wore in London since they would be climbing, gloves and they also wore thick hooded jackets, it was already very cold normally but the mountain was even colder.

“Black is quite easy to spot...Will you be okay Captain?” Alejandro asked as helped people start climbing.

“I’ll be fine, we’re not climbing the whole way anyway, I’m just trying to see if there are any caves or structures in the lower areas,” Yue responded as he climbed.

There wasn’t anything too out of place, a few caves, some were empty and some had monsters deep inside them. They weren’t Wyverns so Yue just told the groups to let them be.

“Captain!” Alejandro whispered.

Yue turned to look at him and noticed where he was pointing. There was a trail off the side of the mountain that hadn’t been shown on the map. They were told that the mountains and the forest weren’t used by the nearby town because of the Wyverns and the other monsters living inside. So there should be no reason for there to be a trail.

Yue looked at it for a second before looking around for a good place to settle his feet as he started going down to the trail.

“Stay there,” Yue said and started lightly jumping down.

It took him a while to get down, they hadn’t climbed very high but the area near the trail wasn’t the area they had climbed up from so he had to judge whether the rocks would be strong enough as he went down.

When he got down to the trail he examined it a bit. There were some light marks from a horse and a carriage, and some footprints as well. The tail wasn’t visible from inside the forest because of the bushes in the forest and how close it was to the mountains and there was almost no way to see it other than if you were climbing the mountain or on an airship.

“This was made in secret and used recently…” Yue murmured and made a mental note of it. He walks around it and looks around the area. He followed the trail to see where it would lead him.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come?” Mai asked Yue through telepathy.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Yue said and told them once again to just stay where they were as he walked out of sight as he walked on the trail.

The trail was surprisingly long and started to have a little bit of an increase in elevation.

‘Is it going up the mountain or around it…?’

Yue stopped for a second and used his eyes to see the future of where the trail would lead him. He saw a large cave on the side of the mountain, hidden by bushes and leaves.

Yue blinked and stopped having his prophecy when he heard a scream that sounded like Mai. He was going to immediately turn but an odd shadow was cast on him and it seemed to be moving.

“Captain!”

“Yue!”

“Miss Yue!”

Yue slowly turned around, he already knew what kind of creature was flying above him.

—

Viktor was scouting out the areas near the mountain when he heard the screams of Yue’s name and immediately panicked. Alexius and Walter rushed behind him around to where the screams came from.

When they arrived they just saw Yue standing perfectly still in the shadow of a Wyvern.

Viktor unsheathed his sword slowly, he didn’t want to kill it but if it showed any sign that it would harm Yue he was ready to at least scare it away and at most rip it limb from limb.

The wyvern let out a low rumbling sound. It was almost a road but it wasn’t very ferocious.

“I will get rid of these filthy humans for you Your Majesty.”