The smoke cleared up, and there stood Yves with the paper now turned into ashes.

  Yves was surrounded by many people, all of them getting ready to fight at any point.

  “Who are you?” One of the people surrounding Yves asked.

  “I am a student here, and I have no idea what happened.”

  Fabio, in the background, managed to stand up with two people holding him on each side as he was clearly injured.

  “He’s a student here. He came back after six months.”

  Yves tried to look at Fabio, but there were too many people surrounding him that if he made any suspicious movement, he would be killed without having the opportunity to explain himself.

  The masked man appeared once again to see what the commotion was about and primarily to check if someone was a threat to the safety of the others.

  “Welcome back, Yves. How was your expedition?”

  Yves was surprised to hear that voice calling for him in such a friendly manner.

  The people surrounding him started to look at each other to try to figure out what they should do.

  The closer the masked man appeared, the lower the guard, and they made a path for him to enter.

  “You have a lot of explanations to do, but I can see that you have gotten stronger.” The masked man looked up and down at Yves, checking every muscle. “I think you have advanced to a high D-rank.”

  The room became dead silent; they first realized that they had made a mistake in targeting an innocent person.

  “Wait, you mean the Yves that is the weakest in the entire school?”

  “I mean, he was the weakest, but at this point, he seems pretty strong.” The masked man responded to someone in the crowd.

  The people started whispering at each other; some had no idea who he was, and some had heard of Yves but couldn't say anything about him. There were little people in the crowd who interacted with Yves, but they all stayed quiet, mostly because they still didn't believe that he was back.

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  Fabio walked to Yves and guided him away.

  Everyone looked around to see who had healed Fabio since when they first saw him, he was very weak, but now it appeared as if nothing had happened to him.

  Yves is also perplexed as to how Fabio is in perfect condition; his mind feels like a mush. There are too many thoughts happening that he can’t properly think a complex thought or expand on the thoughts he currently has.

  “Fabio, are you ok?”

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  Yves ran out of Fabio’s arm, stepping in front of him. Yves inspected Fabio since he knew that the explosion was strong enough to make him fly away.

  Yves looked up and down; he went closer to Fabio and started inspecting him with even more detail.

  Fabio is just standing there stunned as he is also confused about what is happening. He is taking in everything slowly to make sure he doesn't forget any important detail that happened.

  “Oh, there is a new ranking system since every day we are learning more about mythological beings.”

  “What?” Yves stopped touching, looking at Fabio with a confused look.

  “Yes, now there is a low, normal, and high of each rank.”

  “What rank are you?” Yves’s brain cells started to work again.

  “I am standard C-rank. Urayuli.”

  Yves looked at Fabio confused; he recognized the name but couldn’t think about what it was or what abilities it had.

  Fabio realized that Yves was confused and started explaining what he did.

  “We normally don’t tell our beings, but since you don't know what I am talking about, I will tell you what I can do.”

  Yves nodded, staring into Fabio’s eyes. Fabio felt a little intimidated.

  He regained his cool and started talking.

  “Ok, so a Urayuli is a tall hairy being, which can be either dark or brown fur, with the rarest of them being white.”

  “What color did you get?”

  “Wait, I am getting there. Each variation has different powers; the black-furred Urayuli are the most aggressive and the strongest out of all the colors. The brown one is elusive and lights up an environment with their eyes. The white one, which is the one I have, is a healer. She grants shields and heals external injuries.”

  “Oh, so that is why you healed so quickly.”

  “Correct. Now tell me what you are.” Fabio pointed at Yves, his hands glowing white.

  Yves, you can’t say. We don’t know if he is ready to learn the truth about us. If he does, the others might target him and create chaos in this town.

  Those words felt more like a threat than advice. Yves thought about it carefully and couldn’t say a word. He opened his mouth and expelled air, but no sound was produced.

  “Tell me more about the rank changes.” Yves quickly changed the topic.

  Fabio caught on to this sudden change of topic. However, he knew that there was something deeper about Yves, but he didn’t decide to pry into Yves's dilemmas. He knows that once Yves feels better, he will open up to him; all he has to do is be with him, and things will naturally fit together.

  “So the changes are simple, but they are more diverse since every day we discover different types of mythological beings with different abilities. So aside from the ranks, they are divided into classes. I am a healer, so I am with the other healers.”

  “So what am I?”

  “Um… I don’t know, but I am sure you will take another evaluation to see what class you are in. This is because in approximately a year we are going to start attacking the mythological beings and clearing more and more territory for us to live. Since we are becoming overcrowded.”

  “How much progress have we made since I left?” Yves started questioning the speed at which everything changed; there had to be another factor at play.

  “He, so your brain finally works. But yes, something happened.”

  “...”

  “Do you know Adam?”

  “Yeah, I do know Adam. I want to know what he is up to.” Yves started imagining Adam with his milk-white hair fighting against a strong monster.

  “Well, he discovered another town and saved them, which, as a reward for saving them, they gave him many rewards and transferred him into this town to work on manual labor.”

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Both Fabio and Yves looked back.

  Yves’s body began turning red, his heart racing, his palms and face sweating.