Amelia was running away from the cafeteria frantically. She wanted to leave that place as soon as possible.

"It's just a bad dream, it's not real...", she muttered to herself over and over again despite the weird gazes students were giving her. But deep down, she knew that all of it was as real as it could ever be. 

She continued to run, until suddenly, she felt a grip on her shoulder.

"Amelia..."

It was Raun. Since Amelia was a healer with low agility, she couldn't have outrun Raun who was F+ ranked in agility despite being a tank.

"Look, everything you saw wasn’t r—  ARRRRGH!"

Amelia, who was not in her right state of mind, kicked Raun in his balls and quickly ran away, leaving him to grovel on the ground in pain.
.

.

.

.

.

It took a while, but she was finally out of the academy. She wasn't at her dorm room, as that place would only remind her of Raun. Instead, she was on top of a hill behind the Capital.

Sitting on a big rock, her mind gradually calmed down.

"Ow!", she winced in pain as she finally felt the pain from her feet. There were blisters everywhere, she really pushed herself to run as far away from that lecherous bastard as possible.

Feeling that the pain had subsided a bit, she heaved a sigh. Today... was a sad day for her. Her boyfriend of over 6 years had betrayed her. She didn't know who she could trust anymore.

She gazed up at the night sky, wanting to find solace in such action. But, there was only one lonely star in the sky that night. The star reminded her of how lonely she was, now that in her mind, Raun had already cheated on her with the woman that had cow tits.

'He hasn't even kissed me yet…'

She felt betrayed, depressed, and... inferior. She continued to sob until a rustling sound caught her attention.

"Oh my, a little girl crying in the middle of the night? How intriguing."

"Y- you! Who are you!". Amelia was wary, but she could do nothing but try and run at the first possible chance. After all, she didn't have any combat capabilities.

"Who am I? Wouldn't you like to find it out yourself", the mysterious figure said as he walked towards Amelia while slowly reaching into his pants.

She stepped back, only to trip on a small rock and fall down to her butt.

The man was right in front of her. His sinister smile terrified her. She wouldn't dare to imagine what horrible thing would happen to her if the man caught her.

But alas, she couldn't do anything but close her eyes and accept her fate.

'This is my end', she thought before a cold voice rang out, catching both her and the man by surprise.

{Freeze.}

*

*

*

*

"Oi Miseria, why are you dragging me here?", a girl with flaming red hair asked in confusion.

"Erika’s camping at the entrance of my room and I don't feel like dealing with her right now," Miseria calmly replied.

"I can get that, but why do you have to drag me with you?"

"..."

"Don't tell me you're that lonely?", the girl, whose identity was Ria Pyrian, asked jokingly.

Miseria just hung her head down low in response.

"Shit, didn't expect it to actually be true. Uh sorry, I guess"

"It's okay", Miseria meekly replied while still keeping that emotionless face she always had. "That's not the only reason anyways. I also wanted to try stargazing with someone."

"But there aren't that many stars tonight."

"Maybe more will show up when we get to that spot," Miseria said in a monotonous tone.

"Do you think stars are animals or something? How can they show up when there aren't any tonight in the first place?"

"..."

Ria sighed. If she didn't know about Miseria's ability beforehand, she would have thought that she was mad at her. Thus, she decided to just follow Miseria from behind.

After walking in silence for a few minutes, however, Ria winced in pain as she bumped into Miseria’s back.

"Ow! Why did you sto—"

"Shhhh", Miseria shushed Ria and pointed forwards.

Ria followed the direction Miseria was pointing at, only to see a girl being cornered by a hooded man around a few hundred meters away from where they were.

"Isn't that the Saintess?", Ria squinted her eyes as she recognized the girl.

"Which one? The Saintess of Lighting or the Saintess of Wind?"

"No, she's Amelia the Saintess of Life. She's in our class, don't you remember her?"

Miseria frowned for a second before shaking her head.

Ria sighed in defeat. 'This girl, she really doesn't remember anyone that isn't worthy in her eyes.'

"Should we help her?" Miseria asked for Ria's opinion. After all, she didn't want to be rash and repeat that incident ever again.

Ria observed the situation a bit more. After seeing Amelia falling to the ground butt-first and making a terrified face, she concluded that Amelia was in trouble. She and the man were no lovers doing shady stuff in the middle of the night like Ria had originally thought.

Sighing, Ria took out a pair of gloves from her pockets and put them on. "Might as well"

As soon as Ria said that, Miseria dashed into action. She channeled mana into her throat, before activating one of her Authorities.

{Freeze}

Immediately after, surges of icy cold mana shot towards the hooded man, freezing his legs in place.

"What? Who dares!", the man roared in rage, clearly not finding being interrupted of his fun time very amusing.

Upon seeing Miseria and Ria in the distance, however, his face full of anger turned into amusement and joy.

"HAHAHA! I CAN'T BELIEVE 3 OF MY TARGETS CAME RIGHT TO ME! WHAT A LUCKY DAY!"

He then released his D- rank mana, instantly breaking Miseria's ice.

Miseria frowned inwardly. Although spells that formed through single-word Authorities were weaker than their normal counterpart, she had expected him to at least struggle for a bit, especially when Miseria herself was only a minor rank lower than him.

Seeing that the man was recovering from her attack, she decided to use her Star magic.

"[Steller projection]"

The only star in the sky twinkled for a split second before a translucent blue screen appeared right in front of her eyes.

Star of Vexious refused to heed your call

Miseria clicked her tongue. 'What bad luck...'

However, she needed to focus on the battle ahead of her. She couldn't win against a D- ranked individual in a direct battle. No matter how strong she was, she simply could not do it. The sheer difference in power was too great.

Despite knowing that, she was strangely excited about the battle. After all, everyone in Ark were weakling in her opinion, well, maybe everyone except Artoria, who resisted her Authority and showed explosive growth, and that mysterious Astrape who managed to also resist her Authority and see her in that...comprismising state.

'If he's at D rank then maybe I can let loose.' Her father and grandfather were so overprotective of her that they didn't let her fight any of the knights ranked higher than her, despite her constantly telling them that her ability could get temporary suppressed that way.

However, she soon shook herself off such thoughts.

'Maybe another time then'. She decided that she would not use her Eyes, at least not when Amelia was still in range of it.

"[Ice weapon: Scythe]"

A two-handed battle scythe made out of ice manifested in her hands. She dashed forwards and made a slashing motion. 

But contrary to Miseria's expectations, the man didn't even try to dodge the blow.

"ARRGH!", he screamed in pain. The tip of the scythe impaled the man's shoulder, tearing his flesh off, and slowly but surely giving him severe frostbite. However, he still smirked at Miseria.

Sensing something was amiss, she tried to pull the scythe out of his shoulder, but it was firmly stuck there. She then let go of the scythe and tried to retreat back a couple of steps. But she was too late.

"Hahaha, you fell into my trap!". The man lets out a burst of crazed laughter before chanting an ominous spell.

"[Miasma smog]!"

Instantly, black-colored smoke flew toward Miseria. She couldn't help but to inhale some of it. Still keeping her calm, she quickly chanted another spell.

"[Absolute zero]"

Instantly, the air around her froze. The black smoke was also frozen, now nothing more than just harmless black air struggling to float up.

However, that little amount of smoke she inhaled was enough to make her mind slowly turn hazy.

'Absolute zero is already active, should I just use Time magic alre—'

A snapping sound, followed by a pillar of flame forming right under the man's feet and heat searing her face interrupted Miseria's thoughts. 

"AHHHHHH!"

The whole hilltop was dyed in bright orange.

Not waiting for the pillar of fire to subside, Miseria tried to give the man the finishing blow. However, Ria grabbed her shoulders and stopped her.

"Don't. We need him alive for interrogation."

Miseria nodded and came to Amelia to check on her, leaving the man for Ria to handle.

-"[Fire bind]"

She could hear Ria chanting a few more spells from behind, but she paid it no mind. 'I'm sure she knows what she's doing'

Miseria soon approached the terrified Amelia and spoke in a calm tone. "Are you alright?"

Amelia, still shaken from the earlier encounter, slowly nodded.

However, Miseria was still worried about Amelia, so she checked up on her. Although Amelia was mostly unscathed, Miseria couldn't help but notice the blisters on Amelia's feet. "Why didn't you heal your feet?"

"I- I can't heal myself."

"I see"

Awkwardly staring at Amelia for a few seconds, Miseria suddenly sensed a painful headache assaulting her.

"Ow", she exclaimed in a flat tone. If it wasn't for her clutching her own head intensely, no one would have really known that she was in pain.

"Can you heal me?"

"S- sorry. I c-can't heal poisoning"

Miseria wanted to lash out at the healer's uselessness but she chose not to. She could barely keep herself conscious, much less spend her energy reprimanding Amelia.

But then, she then suddenly remember a technique. She sat cross-legged and focused on raising the circulation rate of her mana.

"Fwahh~", she wiped her sweat after 2 minutes of concentrating. The poison was finally out of her system. Leaving the amazed Amelia behind, she moved towards where Ria was.

"Still going?"

"Mhm, he's a tough nut to crack". Despite being burnt alive, the man still refused to talk, which just made Ria more frustrated.

"Let me try then"

"Tell me, why are you here", Miseria asked in a cold voice.

"Kuhahah, you think I'd tell you? I'd rather die than betray my organization"

'So an organization is behind this... interesting', Miseria noted.

The man, blissfully unaware that he was feeding them information, started to let his mouth loose more.

"Hey little girls, stop this puny little fire here right now and strip down. Then maybe I, the great vice-leader Ferben of the strike squad, will spare you".

After a few seconds, however, he realized his mistake as his expression turned to that of shock. He couldn't believe that his mouth was that loose. Where did all of his professional training against torture go?

'Vice leader? Strike squad?', Miseria was confused. There wasn't any organization that used those terms as far as she was aware.

'Maybe I'll ask brother about this.' She decided to just leave it to her older brother to investigate further.

She wanted to knock the man out immediately and bring him back to the professors for more interrogation, but—

"You insolent bastard, I dare you to say that again in front of this daughter of Duke Pyrian!", Ria screamed in anger. Clearly, something the hooded man said had just hit her nerves.

"Stop, Ria. Can't you see that he's provoking you?", Miseria calmly reprimanded Ria.

"Miseria Ecertold, let her do whatever she wants to me", the man smirked. He just wanted to die as soon as possible, lest he divulges more information to his enemies.

"Why should I listen to you?"

"Why shouldn't you listen to me? After all, you're but a filthy mother kille—"

{Freeze}

Despite being severely weakened, Miseria's Authority froze his entire body this time. Due to the sudden change in temperature, the ice cracked, turning the man's body into several frozen chunks of meat.

Miseria, whose eyes were trembling in anger, quickly calmed down as she noticed Ria also shaking in the anger that was not her own's.

'He got me good', she sighed inwardly as he saw the smirk on his bodiless face. 'But how did that bastard know about it?'

Remembering what the hooded man was about to say to her, she couldn't help but feel immense sadness and anger. However, she decided to just forget about it for now, as she didn't want to risk exposing Amelia and Ria to her Eyes more than she already had. She dragged the man's corpse, or at least what was left of it, with her and carried Amelia back to Ark with Ria.

"So Amelia, what are you doing up here at this hour?", Ria tried to ease the awkward and quiet atmosphere they had while walking back to Ark's main building.

Amelia, perhaps sensing a strange sense of reliability from her two classmates, didn't stutter in her speeches anymore. "Well, it's a long story. You probably don't want to hear it."

"Come on, tell us! Even Miseria wants to hear it too." Ria looked at Miseria straight in her eyes. "Right?"

"...Sure, I guess." Miseria decided to play along.

"Well, if you insist..." Amelia then told the two girls about her story with Raun, from how they met, all the way to what happened today.

"I see...", Ria mumbled. "So... how do you want to go with it?"

"...?"

"I mean, what will you do? Will you forgive him or what?"

After thinking for a long time, Amelia finally gave her answer. "I'm not sure... I still love him... but I can't rest my heart without knowing whether he really loved me back or not."

"Hmmm...". Ria tapped her finger on her chin for a bit and then came up with a solution. "How about you fake dating someone else?"

"Huh?", Amelia was confused. 'Did I hear it right?'

"If he still indeed loves you, he would get jealous and try to take you back. Then you can confirm your feelings!"

Amelia immediately brightened up upon hearing Ria's explanation. "Great idea! Thanks, Master Ria"

"No problems, just consult me whenever you want, my dear discipline of romance!", Ria puffed her chest in pride.

Miseria just listened to their conversation in silence while carrying Amelia on her back. She saw something very wrong with Ria's advice. Every time Ria genuinely tried to give someone a suggestion, it always ended disastrously. But who was she to meddle in their affairs? 

'Well, maybe I should intervene this one time', Miseria thought as she looked at Amelia smiling really brightly with Ria. She hated to pour cold water onto her but it would be better than letting Amelia regret following Ria's words later.

"Amelia, I don't thi—"

Interrupting Miseria's sentence was a vaguely familiar presence rapidly coming towards her direction.

'It must be the man's allies', Miseria thought, completely disregarding the faint familiarity the presence gave off. After all, she couldn't afford to be careless when they were still quite a distance away from the Capital.

Thus, she decided to catch the person alive to make up for her killing the supposed vice-leader earlier.

{Kneel}, she spoke in a barely audible voice. Despite being spoken in a low voice, Miseria judged that it would have been more than enough to suppress the person, as she sensed that he was only at peak F rank. However—

"Amelia!", the presence revealed itself to be a girl with jet black hair and molten eyes. 

But, Miseria couldn't care less whether he looked funny or not, since—

'Astrape? So she really resisted my Authority...'

Miseria knew the strength of her classmates best, as she had always observed everyone, trying to find people who could compete with her.

And the only people whose strength she recognized were in the top 10. Even then, she thought that only Artoria and Eleanor were able to give her a decent fight.

However, now...Astrape had definitely fallen under her radar.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Miseria looked around, only to see that Amelia and Astrape were gone.

"Huh? Where did they go?"

"You didn't notice? She took Amelia off your back and ran back to Ark. Apparently she's her friend or something."

"..."

Miseria was ashamed of herself. She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't even notice Astrape going behind her and snatching Amelia from her.

Sighing, she walked back to her dorms with Ria. Seemed that she really couldn't go stargazing tonight.
*

*

*

In a dark room inside a damp cave, several figures were sitting together, discussing some ominous plans of theirs. Suddenly, a yellow candle, whose light was shining brightly, was suddenly snuffed out.

Everyone stared at the now-extinguished candle with an uncomfortable silence, before someone realized what was going on. "Jesus Christ! Ferben died!"

The whole room fell into panic. However, a hooded figure, who seemed to be their leader, managed to keep his calm.

"Silence"

Seeing that everyone had quieted down, the figure started speaking. "That fool's death may be a blessing in disguise. Whether it was because of a professor, a student, or a simple guard, it doesn't change the fact that we have greatly underestimated Ark."

"Madeline, contact the headquarters and tell them to send us reinforcements for the upcoming mission". He then walked out of the room coldly, not minding the murmurs of his subordinates.

'Hope they'll send someone actually useful this time.'
***

I brought Amelia back to her dorm room after...that.  I didn't know what happened, but it was good that the Heroines were getting to know each other...

Though, I was somewhat concerned since Amelia and Miseria weren't supposed to make contact this early.

'Well, it's probably not that big of a deal.'

As I was about to leave the room, Amelia suddenly tugged on my sleeve.

"Ast..."

"What?"

Amelia stared at me with a beet-red face and mustered up all of her courage. "W-Will you go on a d-date with me?"

'...'