Kuu and his five brothers and sisters navigated the densely overgrown forest floor as they made their way to the annual Magic Festival. This was the first year they were going without their parents, who had to remain behind to guide the floundering School of Water that their father had founded just three years ago.

  As the attacks on their outposts grew bolder, even Kuu’s own family was considering abandoning the school of water magic in favor of helping protect the new outposts. The monsters of the deep were becoming more aggressive, and the goblins were growing bolder as well. An entire squad of shield mages guarding a neighboring outpost had been wiped out by a troop of snipers—a devastating blow. Though the outpost had survived the attack, its inhabitants were forced to leave.

  According to those who had relocated to Kuu’s family outpost, this was a blatant violation of their pact with the goblin king. However, the king claimed that the attackers bore no insignia of his, suggesting they were unrelated. The Master of Shields demanded justice for his fallen students, but the Hanging Village council could not afford to escalate the conflict, even if the goblin king was lying about his involvement with the suspiciously well-organized goblin troops.

  “Hurry up, you guppies! We have to reach the village by nightfall, or we won’t get enough sleep for tomorrow. Aarne, how’s the food situation?” Kuu called out.

  Aarne, his older sister by a year, responded, “Still got plenty of this awful dehydrated crap you insisted on. And why are you calling us guppies?”

  “One, why are you even complaining? No one’s hungry, and we only needed to pack two bags for the trip. Second, because you’re like fish on land,” Kuu replied as he effortlessly leaped over his siblings’ heads, crossing five meters in the air with ease.

  “Who are you calling fish, you monkey? You just don’t know how to swim! You only got to be ‘in charge’ for this trip because you pestered Dad when you heard he wasn’t coming. If I had realized you’d force us to eat only expedition meals, I would’ve stopped you back then. It’s Essi’s first Magic Festival, and you insisted on not bringing his snacks,” Aarne complained, nearly shouting as Kuu jumped ahead again.

  Kuu immediately turned and harshly shushed her.

  “It’s fine. We’re getting there early, so we’ll be first in line for the feast, right?” Essi said helpfully in a low voice.

  Hugo panted beneath him, carrying Essi on a conjured wave, which Helka continuously supported as she rode alongside them. This was both part of Kuu’s insistence on their ongoing training and a demonstration of their family's strength. Even though Kuu frequently reminded them that he had set himself apart from the family, he still took charge of their training.

  Aarne gracefully rode on the wave beside the twins and Essi, while Irma lagged behind on foot. Kuu leaped high above them to scout ahead. They were close now—less than two hours from the village—and it wasn’t even noon. As much as his siblings complained, Kuu’s planning and insistence on waking up early had ensured they made the trip safely and quickly.

  For the past four years, the fatality rate among pilgrims had been rising, especially among the youngest travelers. In every previous journey, the Vett? siblings had been accompanied by their parents, but this year, their parents were too preoccupied even to hand them research notes for testing—until Kuu reminded them.

  “Why are you still silencing us? We’re so close, I can already hear other groups that are just as crazy as you, getting here this early,” Aarne called out to Kuu.

  As if to prove her wrong, a guttural growl echoed from ahead, followed by two others.

  A green hound leaped from the foliage toward Essi and Hugo. Aarne and Kuu fired spark bolts in response, but they missed as the hound was knocked back by Irma’s concentrated air blast, its exposed skull cracking as it slammed into an old oak tree.

  It prepared for another attack—until a spark bolt struck it from above. The moment the spell hit, the chainsaw spell inside activated, cleanly severing the hound’s head.

  The remaining hounds turned to flee, but Kuu didn’t hesitate. He hurled an energy sphere at one, then killing the last with another spark bolt before it could escape.

  “See why? Did you forget that we aren’t at home anymore? Who knows where the caves actually are, but we know for sure they’re somewhere around this area. That means monsters are a lot more common,” Kuu reprimanded his older sister.

  Moments later, a trio of older men arrived, drawn by the commotion. Kuu and Aarne recognized them—they were their father’s best students. The Vett? siblings were left wondering if their parents had arranged for their presence along the route.

  “We’re fine, but it’s best to be cautious. Glad to see you around. I was sure we left the outpost first—how come you’re here at the same time as us?” Kuu asked.

  “Oh, that’s simple. Jesse’s parents don’t live with us at the outpost, so we left a day early to stop by their home before setting out,” the leader of the trio explained, slipping in a compliment at the end. “Impressive shot as ever, Mister Vett?.”

  “Maybe the third and fourth shots,” Kuu admitted, half-admonishing himself. “I was too slow on the first, and anyone could’ve made the second one after Irma sent the hound flying like that.”

  The trio stayed with them for the remainder of the journey, giving Helka some much-needed rest from supporting their mobile wave. However, Kuu found their alternative water spell highly questionable. They had opted to use the water trail modifier on an energy sphere—an incredibly simple solution, yet deeply flawed. Not only did it flood the entire area, forcing Helka and Aarne to carry Irma together as she could no longer keep up on foot, but it also left them vulnerable. If any monster capable of using electricity—rare as they may be—appeared, they would have no chance of escaping a gruesome death. Despite his strong opinions, Kuu held back his criticism out of begrudging respect for the trio, who managed to sustain the high-cost spell with remarkable efficiency.

  True to their predictions, even with their brief pause, they arrived early at the village. Scouts spotted them from afar and dropped vine ropes for the siblings and the trio of mages to climb up to the first level of the Hanging Village.

  As Kuu ascended, he reflected on how much the village had changed since his last visit half a cycle ago, when he had accompanied his father and some of his students to deliver supplies and cultivated spells. The village had continued to grow. He remembered that when he was Essi’s age, he could still make out the original branches of the Pillar Tree among the surrounding structures. Now, it was impossible to spot.

  According to the elders, their ancestors had chosen to rebuild their civilization on the tree, standing strong against the goblin menace. For several cycles, they endured goblin raids but survived and continued to grow. However, with the first emergence of the monsters of the deep—creatures thought to have been left behind in the past with the Witch—the people panicked. Many scattered, founding the first outposts in search of safety. Kuu always sensed a hidden resentment in the elders’ words when they spoke of the outpost founders, as if leaving their original families to establish a new home was not an act of bravery but a betrayal of their traditions.

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  Still, no one could dismiss the grandeur of the Hanging Village. It had expanded so much that its countless layers now stretched into the clouds, where the council resided. It was no longer just a village—it had grown into a true city. Trade had flourished to the point where people had begun exchanging gold for goods, a concept entirely foreign to Kuu. Everywhere else he had visited, people shared resources based on need. If someone was sick, they were given medicine with the understanding that they would repay the community with honest work once they recovered.

  When his father first told him that he required payment from the students he took from the village each year, Kuu was dumbfounded. It felt like a betrayal of their family’s values to accept students based on their ability to pay rather than on their merit.

  Kuu took off toward the spell vault. Usually, only his father or mother was allowed inside to deliver spells they had cultivated or those left behind by expeditions that took shelter with them before venturing back into the unknown.

  When Kuu turned 18 cycles old, he had tried to convince a passing expedition to let him join them, but they rejected him out of concern for his safety. In the end, he was actually grateful for that rejection, as he later came to understand that an expedition team wasn’t just a group of mages deemed adequate by the council to explore the world. It was a cohesive unit designed to cover each other's weaknesses—not just in magic but in survival skills as well. While he had gotten along well with one of the members, he had completely hated two others, making the idea of joining them completely illogical.

  Since then, Kuu had made sure to remedy this issue—not by improving his attitude toward new people, of course, but by honing his survival skills. He had studied under the outpost apothecary at odd hours with fervor, learning everything he could. He also picked up scavenging skills from the apothecary and a herbalist who had moved to the outpost a year prior. However, he swore off scavenging altogether after the old herbalist poisoned herself to death by consuming too much of the wrong mushroom. Kuu didn’t even know if there was such a thing as a "right" mushroom—after all, the memorial of the Witch went to great lengths to describe many varieties of deadly fungi, including some that could move on their own and actively try to kill you.

  Kuu arrived at the guard checkpoint in front of the spell vault. The two guards on duty were imposing figures, each wielding a retrofitted gun looted from goblin raiders. While most competent mages could match or surpass a firearm’s effectiveness with their spells, the guns possessed superior accuracy and range. More importantly, they were a symbol of power—proof that the Hanging Village was at the heart of their civilization.

  Metalcraft had become a lost art to most of their people. The goblins were savages, but they were technologically superior to humanity—or at the very least, they had a way to manufacture weapons and armor. Even being able to train a guard to wield one of these weapons and trust them with their people's most valuable resource was a statement of strength.

  "I came to deliver our spells and file our spell experiments for tomorrow. Please let me through," Kuu stated calmly.

  The guards quickly moved to block his way.

  "Sure. Where’s your father, then, Kuu?" the male guard asked, apparently recognizing him. Kuu, however, had no recollection of the man.

  "My father isn't coming this year. He’s busy with our school. I’m here in his stead," Kuu replied.

  "Aren't you the third child? I find it suspect that he trusted the son who tried to sneak into the vault when he was 12 over his eldest—or even over his eldest daughter, considering his continued absence from the festival," the guard remarked.

  Kuu was already tuning out the guard’s words. He took off his travel bag and retrieved a signed letter from his father, wax seal and all.

  "You can’t tell me your main job isn’t to prevent future mages from hurting themselves or trying to sneak out with a spell," Kuu said dismissively. "Anyway, I’m all grown up. I’ll prove it definitively tomorrow. But for now, can you confirm that this letter is proof enough of my father's trust?"

  The guard took the letter from Kuu’s outstretched hand, carefully breaking the wax seal before reading through its contents.

  "Well, I see you’re correct… for the most part," the guard admitted. "Your father has written that you have his authority to select the spells your family may work with tomorrow and the right to nominate which spells your family members will demonstrate. However, he also states that both you and your sister must be present to enter the vault. We’ll wait here patiently for you to bring her."

  Kuu grumbled under his breath about his father holding onto cycle-long grudges but didn’t continue arguing.

  "Fine, I’ll go find her. Can I have the letter back, though? And can you list Aarne and me as the official representatives?"

  "Fine. Good luck with that," the guard replied, handing Kuu the letter before waving him off.

  As Kuu left, the trio of water mages they had traveled with finally arrived to deliver their own supplies—or, maybe, to hand over any spells Jesse might have received from his family's outpost. With Aarne listed as a representative, Kuu realized this likely meant he wouldn’t be given permission to join the older mages for spell testing.

  Still, he kept his spirits high as he set off to find his sister.

  Fortunately, it was a simple task. Few pilgrims arrived as early as they had, and thanks to their marked shoulder plates, the locals were able to direct Kuu toward his family. He found them seated at a food stand, enjoying a paid meal without him.

  The smell was overwhelming. Even the grand feasts he had attended in the past paled in comparison to the rich aroma filling the air. His stomach grumbled in protest—after days of forcing down expedition meals, the sight of real food was almost too much to bear.

  He didn’t want to admit it—not to Aarne, not to anyone—but he had been wrong about the expedition rations. They were awful.

  Aarne was chatting with the local cook, gossiping about how awful the expedition rations were and asking for tips to improve them. The cook, in a humorous tone, often suggested adding crushed bugs or even some spit. Kuu wasn’t entirely sure what was so funny about that—after all, he had heard that expeditions ate bugs quite often, as they were almost always available.

  Quietly, he approached his sister, making sure not to make a sound on the noisy floorboards by stealthily floating over to her. He then tugged on her sleeve. She immediately turned toward him, startled, before flushing pink.

  Everyone in their family had been trained from birth to remain constantly vigilant. It was simply common sense for any family that truly cared about its children—at least, that was common sense among the outpost pilgrims. Just walking through the village, Kuu had already noticed two instances where people carrying heavy crates had almost crashed into each other. That might not seem like a big deal to a village dweller, but for those raised in the outposts, being caught off guard was the greatest embarrassment.

  Of course, Kuu had known this would embarrass Aarne. But he was still letting off some of his frustration at the likely lost opportunity. Their father’s letter had made it clear to the council that Aarne was still the eldest, which meant Kuu wouldn’t be granted any exceptions to test the more dangerous spells tomorrow.

  "Stop doing that. I know you’re enjoying your discovery and feel the need to flaunt it at every opportunity, but I’m already exhausted and just want to find us a quiet place to lodge," Aarne said before Kuu could even speak. "Don’t worry, I didn’t forget your extra clothes—though you absolutely deserve to be stuck in those sweaty rags you’re wearing. At least we washed off on the way here."

  "I came over because Father wrote that we have to deliver the spells together. The guards won’t let me in without you present as well," Kuu explained.

  "Good thinking. I’m honestly surprised you’re getting to go inside the vault at all. Maybe Dad is planning a crime and didn’t want to make it too obvious by sending you in alone," she replied in a mocking tone.

  "Ha ha. Are you coming or not?"

  "No, I want to eat first. Now tell me, what do you want?"

  Kuu was about to decline, but his stomach betrayed him. He sat down with his siblings and enjoyed the best lunch they had in years.

  They all loved their father, but in his absence, everyone seemed more at ease. The usually silent twins, who typically only whispered to each other, were speaking freely. And for once, Kuu wasn’t rambling about spell experiments. Instead, he talked about the things he had already seen around the village and made up stories about every new pilgrim group they spotted from their vantage point as they made their way to the village.