Chapter 54 – The Sleepwalker's Announcement
Part 1: Familiars, Fangs, and First-Year Fire
The lecture chamber of Class 1-B stirred with soft tension.
No instructor. No announcements. Just students murmuring between spell runes, exchanging theories with sharpened eyes.
A full month had passed. They still hadn't seen their homeroom teacher.
Only a weekly board message:
Instructor: S. VelgraithStatus: "...Resting. Check again never."
Some thought it was a joke.
Others thought he was dead.
Everyone knew the name.
Velgraith the Ash-Walker.Velgraith the Blood-Quiet.Velgraith, who once erased an entire necromancer cult in his sleep.
And today, for the first time—he arrived.
The door creaked open like it feared him.
In walked a man with half-tied white hair, a crushed velvet nightshirt still buttoned wrong, barefoot, and blinking like the world itself was just a rude dream.
He scratched his stomach absently, yawned loud enough to echo, and blinked at the class with one red eye half-lidded.
No authority. No presence.
Just… a man who looked like he'd been woken up by accident.
"Morning," he muttered, voice flat. "Or whatever this place calls it."
The class didn't respond.
He sighed.
"I'm Velgraith. You're my problem this year. I was supposed to show up last week."
He paused mid-thought.
"Didn't. Someone lit a candle in the hallway. Felt too bright. Had to retreat."
He shuffled to the front of the room and stared at the blackboard like it offended him.
Picked up a piece of white chalk. Snapped it by accident. Used it anyway.
In jagged, uneven handwriting, he scrawled:
First-Year Competition Begins.
The room stilled.
Even Ariz tilted his head, just slightly.
Velgraith turned, leaning against the wall.
"All first-year classes. One big arena mess. I don't know the theme. You don't know the theme. You're going to fight. That's the important part."
He yawned again.
"Some of you will advance. Some of you will fail. One of you might explode. These things happen."
"Wait—explode?" a beast-kin student asked from row four.
Velgraith shrugged. "We keep records. Accidents are optional."
He stretched, popping his neck.
Then raised a lazy finger, and the classroom dimmed as a projection rune spun into the air—complex, elegant, formed from violet bloodlight.
[Topic: Familiars and Soulbonding – Beginner Tier]
"Right," Velgraith said, scratching his temple. "This part's required."
He stepped toward the rune and waved his hand.
"Each of you is allowed one familiar. One companion summoned from your mana resonance. It won't be a pet. It won't be nice. It'll be something that hears your heartbeat and asks if it wants to help."
The glyph shifted, showing glowing silhouettes of beasts, birds, phantoms, and stranger things with too many eyes.
"You don't get to pick," Velgraith continued. "It picks you. You draw it out. Tomorrow, I'm legally obligated to walk you through the process."
Another long sigh.
"If it were up to me, I'd toss you into the summoning pool and see who survives."
"Are we summoning in class?" someone asked.
Velgraith gave a deadpan blink.
"Do I look like I want to clean up blood and feathers?"
He pointed lazily toward the back wall.
"South courtyard. Midnight. Bring chalk. Bring incense. Don't wear red. It pisses off the glyph."
He was already walking away before anyone could ask why.
At the door, he paused, rubbing one eye with his knuckles.
"Right. One more thing."
He looked over the class one last time—expression unreadable.
"Congratulations. You made it through your first month."
He yawned again, wider this time.
"That's farther than most."
Then he left.
No teleportation. No flourish. Just soft footfalls and retreating sleep.
The classroom stayed frozen.
Until someone finally whispered, "That's… our teacher?"
Another: "He's the strongest of the first-year instructors?"
Ariz remained quiet, staring at the chalk still glowing faintly on the board.
Tomorrow, he would summon a piece of himself.
Not a companion.Not a servant.
A reflection.