"Even when Orpha eliminates her apprentices, she never does it at the start. She has her own standards for deciding whether an apprentice is ’quality’ or ’defective.’ Combat ability, wealth, professional achievements, progress toward their dreams... You can call her cruel, you can call her cold-blooded, you can call her unbearably strict, but you can’t call her petty."
"That’s way beyond strict..." Lightchaser clearly disagreed with GodDraw77’s balanced tone. "Wail, you, Wrong Answer, Mountfuse. Do you think ordinary people could ever meet those standards? ...Anyway, Mistblade will be safe at least until graduation, since she already won the fun match championship back in fifth year."
Rita’s breath slowed. She asked tensely, "What about Maple Syrup? Didn’t you say her teacher Mountfuse was really good? You even said if he applied to any magic academy, every single one would fight to hire him."
"Because Mountfuse is good. His talent wasn’t remarkable, but he pushed himself through Orpha’s combat standards with sheer effort. That kind of teacher is every magic school’s dream." Lightchaser’s voice slowed, her expression tightening, as though weighing her words. Googlᴇ search N0v3l.Fiɾe.net
Finally, she said, "Mountfuse is a stable madman."
GodDraw77 picked up from there. She didn’t argue with Lightchaser’s description but explained why.
"Mountfuse may have survived Orpha’s standards, but only just. And that’s Orpha’s true brilliance—she only cares about her standards. She doesn’t care whether an apprentice adores her or despises her.
"Even if an apprentice would gladly die for her, if they’re ’defective’ in her eyes, she cuts them off without hesitation. On the other hand, even someone like Mountfuse, who hates her, she leaves alone, simply because he meets the standard."
"I’ve always thought that’s what drove him mad. He thought Orpha never respected him. Any normal person would wipe out someone who could threaten them..." Rita noticed how Lightchaser’s brows pinched tighter every time Orpha’s name came up.
"I don’t want to judge most of what my teacher has done," GodDraw77 said carefully, "but in Mountfuse’s case, I believe she wasn’t wrong. Orpha always explained her standards before taking an apprentice. She told them what their gifts were, what she expected from them. Her expectations for Mountfuse weren’t combat-related. She meant to make him into a merchant richer than kingdoms. But halfway through, he decided to change course, and that’s why it was so hard for him."
Noticing their conversation had left Rita behind, GodDraw77 turned back to her and continued. "Mountfuse swore he would never become another Orpha. He said he’d never dismiss an apprentice just because her talent wasn’t outstanding, and he’d never abandon her just because she suffered a setback. He chose a student whose situation mirrored his own—Maple Syrup."
The doubt Rita had carried since the Divine Game individual match resurfaced. "Maple Syrup’s talent... isn’t good?"
"Yes. Strictly speaking, it’s her private matter, but by the time we left Arisentna, it was public knowledge." GodDraw77’s voice was calm, but her words were heavy. "Her divine gift was only B-rank. Mountfuse extracted her parents’ divine gifts and forcibly raised hers to S-rank."
Rita asked the question before she even realized what answer she wanted. "Did Maple Syrup know? Did she agree?"
GodDraw77 gave the plainest possible answer, free of opinion. "The day after Maple Syrup won the individual championship in fifth year, Mountfuse revealed it publicly. He said it had been Maple Syrup’s request. The story shook all of Arisentna.
"Journalists—almost as if waiting for it—interviewed her parents in Kaladom that very day. Even they said it had been Maple Syrup’s idea. When we left Arisentna, it was still the top headline."
Rita’s response was immediate and certain. "There’s no way Maple Syrup asked for that."
If she had, then back in school, both she and Mistblade never would have felt Maple Syrup was being dragged into something that was swallowing her whole.
GodDraw77 kept her opinion to herself, though her silence suggested she thought the same.
Rita’s worry eased slightly. She said firmly, "Maple Syrup wouldn’t take a gamble she couldn’t win. If she dared to break with Mountfuse, then she had another way forward."
Once the topic of Rita’s friend ended, Lightchaser and GodDraw77 relaxed. No more need to tiptoe.
They spoke of the chaos that had erupted in Arisentna before they left.
It was as if every rebellious student had chosen that one window of time to explode.
One turned a classmate into an undead pet. Another stripped a classmate of her gift. Another stole her school’s treasured relic. One, still only in fifth year, led her people in a war that wiped out an entire race.
Compared to that, Maple Syrup’s scandal hardly seemed extreme.
But both teachers only knew what happened in the first year after Rita vanished. Whether anyone had activated GodDraw77 since then, or what happened to Maple Syrup after Mountfuse exposed her, they couldn’t say.
Now and then, they would encounter other boats drifting through the River of Time. Every time, both teachers would spring to their feet, instantly tense, ordering Rita to shrink into Orchid Mantis form and hide in their pockets.
Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes they had to fight together, side by side, just to protect their little boat.
It was a monotonous, endless, perilous journey, one both Lightchaser and GodDraw77 had already made once before.
And after every battle, when Rita saw them cover her with healing spells of every kind, she thought the same thing: she would never forget this sight. And she would never be able to master the Savage Form.
After another battle ended, she couldn’t hold the question back. "Teacher, how did you master Savage Form? And Natural Form too? Aren’t they contradictory?"
"They are contradictory," GodDraw77 admitted gently, washing the blood from Moonbear’s fur with a spell. "But not impossible. When we were very small, elder druids created environments for us to experience the mindsets of each form. Nature Form first, then Savage Form, then Hunter Form. That’s the perfect sequence.
"Hunter Form can shift in order, but Nature and Savage cannot. Destruction is always easier than rebuilding."