The sky was blood red... thick, dark smoke swallowed everything in sight. The city was burning, the castle had been destroyed, and the ground was filled with corpses. Helpless civilians were starting to lose all hope; they could only kneel and cry. I, too, couldn't take this anymore. I couldn't breathe with how polluted the air had become, and my skin felt hot since everything around me was on fire. How did it come to this?
"Master, look out!"
Theo pushed me out of the way from a projectile. Those arrows the enemies used were all poisoned, and even just a small wound could take my life in minutes. Theo used himself to shield me from it.
"Theo!"
It hit his arm, and then he fell. If I didn't do anything, he was going to die. I needed to...
"Everything is over... We've lost," he said, but I couldn't accept it. The Dark Lord had laid waste to Georlia, and everything was ruined. We did our best, we tried to get stronger by seeking more experience, but in the end, the hero couldn't slay him.
My legs couldn't move. I was too afraid to stand up. But if I didn't, Theo would die. I hadn't told him how I felt yet; there was still so much that I wanted to say. I still didn't have the courage to tell him how much I loved him. Why was I so weak? This was too much for a prodigy.
My hands tried to reach him, but... A big sword thrust into his head, splitting it in half. At that moment, my mind started to scream, but my body was paralyzed, and I couldn't utter a single word.
"Keke... How stupid," the goblin who wielded the sword chuckled in my face. And my heart started to burn with hate, yet still, my body couldn't move to take my vengeance. It was all this goblin's fault; I wanted to tear him apart, but I couldn't.
"The clock is ticking, Niel. If you don't do anything, everything you cared for will die. Tick, tock, tick, tock..."
And then the alarm rang. I woke up and realized I had been having a really bad dream. I found myself sweating, my body fluids outlining my small body. I looked in the mirror beside me and saw that I looked horrible.
Hastily, I jumped out of bed and put on my robe. I didn't have time to wash my face, and I didn't care. Then I put on my purple witch hat. Grabbing my staff, I rushed out of the dormitory. One thing I knew was that what I saw was not an ordinary dream, not an ordinary nightmare, but a prophecy. I needed to talk to Cirius about this since her area of expertise is divination.
Walking through the streets, I heard stupid rumors buzzing into my ears as students saw me.
"Isn't that the child prodigy, Niel Sylvia?"
"I heard she's already a witch at her age."
"But she's so small."
People called me a prodigy. I had already attained the title of a witch before the age of 17, which usually takes 70 years of extensive studying. I developed my own spells that usually take a group of magical researchers to develop. The hero scouted me for my strength, and I tutored the saintess's guardsman, Theo.
But honestly, I felt like a fraud. "Prodigy" was too much of a title for me. I just coincidentally had access to information that normal people didn't have. I just coincidentally lived my childhood in an environment where strength and knowledge were necessary to survive. I just slightly worked harder than most people, coincidentally making me slightly stronger. I coincidentally met Theo, who had a connection to Agatha, who had a connection to the hero. It was all just coincidence.
"They say that she always loses her panties."
"A prodigy of losing panties?"
"I heard she doesn't shave her armpits."
What!? Who's spreading that rumor!? I'm going to find them and kill them!
And here I was, in front of Cirius's house. I had heard that Theo and his little sister were living with her for free, but I didn't need to be jealous. He, after all, already had a fiancée.
As I was about to turn the knob, I heard Theo's voice from inside.
"Archie... you're so cute."
"Stop, brother. You're tickling me, ah ♥. Don't touch me."
I don't know why, but I had the urge to panic. I burst in and stopped whatever crime was about to happen.
"Stop right there, you pedophile!"
Theo violently stood up, away from Archie, and argued. "I'm not a pedophile, I'm a lolicon!"
"Lolicon means you're a pedophile!"
"That's not true! Lolicon means I love children!"
"Pedophile means you love children!"
"Then it means I'm a pedophile! What? I mean, I'm not a criminal!"
"Officer! That's the enemy of humanity. Arrest him!"
Soldiers barged into the house and pulled Theo into custody. Luckily for me, there were soldiers nearby, or else I might have committed the sin of staining my own hands with his blood.
"STOP! I could prove my innocence!" he persisted, his fingernails scratching the wooden floor as he was being dragged away. But everything he did was futile. He would serve his life in prison and be tortured for the rest of his useless days. This was justice.
"Ah... Brother."
Why did Archie follow them with a worried face? Did I just misinterpret things? Oops? Doesn't matter. Time to meet Cirius.
On the second floor, I entered her room and saw her sitting while sipping a cup of tea with her hands. On the table, there was another glass of barley tea, which I liked. This woman was no fraud; she had already predicted that I was coming.
"Cirius, you already know why I'm here, right?"
She opened her eyes and looked at me, or at least she tried. Both her eyes suffered from cataracts. She was blind, but I felt like she was directly looking into my soul.
"If you had a bad dream, I did too. In fact, somebody else besides you talked to me about it. It seems like most prophets experienced it last night. It's a resonance."
A resonance? Then the message from the divine must be something big.
"Can you describe what your dream is all about?" she asked.
I sat down across from her and joined her for tea as I told her what I dreamt.
"Hmm... It's different from mine. The only thing that is similar is the part where there is a goblin."
What's the relevance of the goblin in all of this? Goblins were usually weak, but if they attacked in large groups, it could be problematic, even for me. Could it be a goblin stampede?
Cirius placed a crystal ball in the center of the table and wrapped both her hands around it.
"It seems like the Dark Lord will start a massive invasion soon, and the goblins will take part in the war. If you belittle them, your party will lose. Be wary. If Prince Albert loses this war... Humans will perish, and monsters will reign upon our land. And..."
Could it be that the goblins will join the Dark Army? Do they even have the intelligence to participate in the war? Maybe the Dark Lord will use them as disposable pawns to weaken us. Cirius's prediction were accurate most of the time, but divination is complex, and what she saw in the crystal ball might be open to misinterpretation.
"I can't see it... It's too foggy," Cirius couldn't see what the ball was trying to reveal next. Wait... what is that?
"What the hell are you watching!?"
I slapped the crystal ball away from the table. Cirius was using the crystal ball to peek into the men's bathroom! I couldn't believe my eyes when the fog cleared, and I saw a naked, bald, muscular man washing his head with shampoo!
"Niel, you know that I'm blind," she looked at me with a poker face, but I'm not going to fall for that.
"Then why is your nose bleeding!?"
"It's a side effect of using too much mana," she said while crawling to pick up the crystal ball, then she smirked.
"Stop watching it!" I slapped it away from her hands. "Seriously, we're in a very serious predicament. If we lost to some mere goblin, I'm never going to recover from embarrassment."
"Don't worry, I believe in you guys. I believe you could protect everyone."
...
"Are you guys ready?" Albert spoke to us as we packed our bags to the carriage. It seemed that Cirius's prediction about the incoming invasion had become a reality, and we were needed to protect the fortresses.
"Brother..."
Archie cutely called Theo, and she was about to cry. Of course she would; it had only been about five days since we returned, and we were already being deployed to a serious war.
Theo rubbed her head and consoled her, then hugged her. "Don't worry, Archie. I'm going to come back alive. I'm sorry I won't be able to celebrate your birthday together. But I promise, when we come back, I'll buy you everything that you want."
"I don't want it! Don't go. Please!"
Archie started crying when she realized that persuading him was useless. But it was such a sweet moment that I adored. Albert must have said goodbye to his big sister before leaving, and Agatha must have had a warm farewell with her parents. Misty said her goodbyes to her booze, and Basilisk to his pet bears and wolves. It was so touching, I'm so envious.
"Please, take care of her for me," Theo asked Cirius, and she nodded.
"You don't need to worry about anything, she's in safe hands."
And there was the bad moment...