Zora may not have been born in Amadeus Academy, but he’d certainly spent his adolescence running through the various school buildings, figuring out all the nooks and crannies he and his friends could hide in whenever they earned a teacher’s ire. The old castle was vast, after all, and larger within than it looked without—but the new language arts building was as straightforward as they came. Three floors, one set of stairs at the end of each hallway, and a bridge connecting it to the dorm in the centre of the academy.

  The straight hallways meant playing hide and seek in this building was always more a game of tag—a game of speed—than one of smarts and ingenuity. As a student who’d never been particularly athletic compared to his classmates, he always got the shorter end of the stick whenever he was the one being chased. As a teacher who easily dwarfed his students, though, he’d had fun the past two years dominating his kids during joint lessons with the fitness teacher’s homeroom.

  He ran. . Two butterfly legs were tucked under his right arm, his wand dangling loosely in his left hand. A horde of giant bugs tore through the corridor behind him, mandibles snapping, legs carving through stone and wooden walls like they were made of paper; he sprinted up the stairs as fast as he could, his lungs burning for air as he occasionally threw a glance behind him.

  They were beetles, spiders, ants, and all manners of terrestrially bound insects, so bunched together he couldn’t make out how many there were exactly, but he knew they’d all been in the courtyard back when he was escorting Emilia across the bridge. That all twenty or thirty or forty or so of them were here meant the academy mages defending the language arts building at the bottom had really been annihilated, and meant there was no way he could possibly defeat them. The mages may be antique, but they weren’t senile. Even those assigned to the academy, who were considered ‘unfit’ for war on the frontlines, had once been trained to slaughter masses of giant bugs without breaking a sweat.

  And Zora was already breaking a sweat running up three flights of stairs.

  By the time he reached the third floor, the entire building was already flooded with bugs. He screeched to a halt the moment he stepped off the stairs, eyes going wide—they were on the walls, outside the windows, legs stabbing through the walls as they surrounded him with a cacophony of screeches. He was fortunate none of them in front were looking at him, so he ducked into the nearest classroom and slammed the door shut as the bugs behind him charged up the stairs, making the entire floor rumble in the process.

  The bridge was at the end of the hallway, but a dozen giant bugs stood between him and his destination. Was there a way to get them out of the way?

  He clenched his jaw as he peeked out the window on the door, pressing his ear against it to listen closely.

  “... Where? Human?” one of them said, accompanied by a series of mandible clicks and flicks. “Ran. Up. Where?”

  “I saw third… floor,” another rasped, this one so close he felt its voice vibrating through the wall. “He came up… through stairs… and then?”

  “Weren’t. You. Watching?” a third one mumbled, and there were sounds of a scuffle outside as though the giant bugs were wrestling each other. “You. Here. First. Where. He. Go?”

  “Wasn’t looking!” a fourth screeched. “You wasn’t! Look! Where human go?”

  “Just smell him out! Feel him out! Mother’s orders are to slaughter all and find–”

  “I saw! Him! Went down!” he shouted, half-gasping for breath. “Came up… stairs, then over railings! Down! Chase him!”

  The giant bugs outside stopped talking all at once. He bit his tongue, parsing their speech patterns once again: lower pitches for commands, higher for questions, and pauses between clicks of their mandibles that resembled punctuation in human tongues. There was a guttural quality to their voices that made their tongue a difficult to replicate, but… he was ‘Thousand Tongue’ Zora, the man who could speak every tongue on the continent.

  He didn't let off the pressure. His mouth worked, shaping the hisses, vibrating the back of his throat before forcing his voice out as a low-pitch command.

  “What. Waiting. For?” he snarled, rapping the ground hard with his knuckles. “Down! Second floor! Or mother will come herself!”

  And the mention of their ‘mother’ got them moving, scrambling, scuttling outside the hallway as they scraped down the stairs.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as their voices faded, returning to unintelligible screeches as he stopped focusing on them. It was too early for him to sigh in relief, but… when he eventually raised his head and peeked out the window, he didn’t see a single giant bug outside.

  he thought, pushing the door slowly open as he looked left and right. He bit his tongue as he stepped out unaware, though; there was still one giant beetle standing to his left, staring blankly down the hallway as though it were an unruly child appointed as the night sentry against its will.

  No amount of voice mimicry would dislodge it. It was adamant on standing guard on the third floor, so he exhaled through his nose, trying to calm the pounding in his chest—he’d just have to outrun this one last bug, then.

  “Fall, lantern!”

  It was confused enough by what hit it that it didn’t start charging him until two seconds later, at which point he was already at the entrance to the bridge, sprinting towards the cafeteria hall in the distance.

  “Rise and pile, debris!” “Make a dozen blockades and slow… that beetle down!”

  He grumbled, yanking in more debris blockades with 'rise and pile' to slow the beetle down. Rewiring his thoughts after twenty-two years of brain development wasn't as easy as he needed it to be. Before long, though, he sprinted into the cafeteria and almost slipped on the cracked tile floor immediately, but the beetle was still a good thirty metres behind him.

  His throat was scratchy to the point it felt like it was about to bleed, but he managed to sprint into the cafeteria—almost slipping on the cracked tile floor—and then he whirled and quickly scanned the cafeteria once again.

  “Chairs, tables, stools, tr–” “Trays! Benches! Block the door to the cafeteria with a mountain of furniture!”

  Even though furniture flew in on all sides, screeched across the floor, and piled into a physical mountain to block the door off, he still flinched when the beetle rammed into all of it, almost smashing through the blockade in a single blow.

  And it smash through in just another half a minute, maybe even less.

  Looking worriedly around, he sighed a breath of relief as he failed to locate Emilia cowering behind some table in the cafeteria. She must’ve entered the dorm without any issues, so he staggered over to the dorm and banged on the heavy steel gate, shouting at whoever was inside to open up.

  No response.

  Behind him, the beetle pierced through the door and the mountain of furniture with its giant curved horn, tearing the entire doorway to shreds as it stumbled through.

  “... I do not wish to bother you with my knocking fit, good sir, but I am—in every sense of the word—in quite the ‘pickle’ here!” he shouted, gritting his teeth and banging on the gate a few more times as he threw a glance over his shoulder. The beetle was charging straight at him. “Open up! Actually, maybe stay away from the gate! I’ve got no idea if the beetle will spear through both you and I if we’re standing inches apart—”

  “Duck!”

  A voice shouted back from the other side of the gate, so he dropped to his stomach, no questions asked.

  The heavy gate swung inwards immediately, and he heard only a single spell being cast—"Da Capo"

  It would’ve impaled him through the chest and crushed him underfoot, but the incredibly harsh sound disoriented it, making it ram into the wall next to the gate instead. While it struggled to free itself, Zora struggled to stand, too—his ears were ringing, her breaths were haggard—but then someone grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the dorm.

  The heavy gate swung close a second later, the metal bolts and latches sealing automatically as it returned to its normal state.

  Hands on his knees, Zora panted for breath as the beetle banged into the heavy gate behind him. It quickly seemed to realise there was no way its horn could pierce through the incredibly thick steel, though, so the banging stopped after a while.

  The ringing in his head didn’t stop, but he could feel talking to him, hugging him from the side.

  Groggily, he looked around and saw Emilia burying her face in his waist, refusing to let go even as he smiled tiredly and tried to flick her forehead.

  “... Told you I’d be back,” he croaked, forcing himself to stand up straight as he slipped her a piece of candy to nibble on. “You could’ve opened the gate a little faster, though. A few more seconds and I’d—”

  “Don’t move, Zora.”

  A young voice snapped at him, high-pitched and riddled with fear. It was feisty, fast-spoken, and he immediately recognised its owner as he looked around the dark, dimly lit foyer.

  The dorm at the centre of the academy was a two-storey building with five gates leading in and out, but the word ‘dorm’ was a bit misleading. It was more like a noble’s mansion than any student residence. The private rooms were all on the second floor, but the communal baths, study rooms, and kitchens were all fitted next to the giant common room on the first floor. The idea was that new transfer students would have a safe, cosy little space where all the important facilities were close by, allowing them to grow more comfortable with their new home quicker.

  The southwestern foyer he was currently in wasn’t any less grand and richly decorated as a result: it was a long hallway with arched ceilings, sparkly chandeliers, and stone pillars lining the walls. A red carpet ran below him from the gate to the door at the end of the foyer, which would lead into the common room at the centre of the dorm room. Dim lantern light came from the common room, as well as a bunch of eyes peeking at him from the distant doorway—so he scowled at the lady standing in front of him, narrowing his eyes at the wand pointed straight at his face.

  He knew the lady.

  After all, she was the one and only music teacher in Amadeus Academy.

  “... Prove you’re not a bug disguising as a human,” Cecilia said, tightening her grip on her wand as she chewed her lip. “Tell me five things only Zora would know, or I’m going to blow your face off.”

  Sound Bug Facts #5: There are three main types of acoustics produced by cicadas: 1) mating calls, in which males produce loud mating calls to attract species-specific females, 2) female responses, in which females respond with softer clicks and wing flicks after hearing a male’s call, and 3) alarm calls, in which cicadas produce screeching sounds when they’re threatened by predators. The alarm call is usually the loudest, because it serves a double purpose in startling the predator!