The girls trained again, but this time it wasn’t about trading spells at range. The rest of the day’s drills targeted their weaknesses.
Vierna worked on pulse shaping: short bursts of mana forced into precise, controlled forms. The exercise was meant to build both capacity and control. Lina’s shaping drills focused purely on accuracy, forcing her to land each spell exactly where intended.
Albrecht watched for a while, giving pointers. Halwen sat on a bench nearby, scribbling in a leather-bound notebook.
After a moment, Albrecht joined him. He looked at the file Halwen slide to him, he read it cautiously, eyes scanning from left to right. “So they’re for Plan Ewige Schlange?”
“Yes. Personal order from the Arkmarschall.”
He rubbed his chin. Two orphaned girls, sent into enemy territory. Routine enough. The Reich had never been short on ‘kindness’. What made this one special was the expectation: that two unarmed girls, with barely a flicker of mana between them, would succeed where battalions had broken and bled.
“How long did they got? Castavell isn’t easy to slip into.”
“The Arkmarschall hasn’t shared the full timeline, but if they aren’t combat ready in six months, they’re out.”
“Six months… Seriously? They are barely starting.” He said in protest on what it seems like an impossible timeline.
“Well, this is Arkmarschall Leopold we’re talking about. Even six months count as generosity.”
Albrecht scratch his head, “Well…Lina might make it. Vierna’s mana still needs time before she’s ready.”
“The research facility will keep trying to boost her reserves.” Halwen said as he adjusted his note.
Experimenting on orphan so they could just be sent on infiltrating the enemy. Nothing new here.
“That’s good and all, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” His tone wasn’t meant to undermine, only to be honest. He hadn’t factored in the boost from the experiment—he would train them as they were. “Which means she’ll need an alternate way to fight to overcome her condition. It won’t be easy, but I’ll help her find the right methods.”
“That means a lot. Thank you.” Halwen said while looking at Lina and Vierna doing their training.
“Don’t thank me,” Albrecht said. “They’re loyal to the bone. As Reich officers, the least we can do is pay them what they’re due.”
They watched the girls for a while, noting how each tried to focus on her practice.
“Ah,” Halwen said, “I almost forgot. They will also be attending the Arkanpfad Academy.”
Albrecht looked at the girls. At least the Arkmarschall hadn’t sent them off with nothing but scraps of training. This plan was meant to succeed, and no expense was being spared in their preparation.
“Oh? That is a good move actually. So before they got accepted, they will be here every day for training?”
“Yes.”
“I see. I’ll have to cancel my Sunday theatrics,” Albrecht exhaled, his holiday taken was something he didn’t expected. “But for them, I will. I also need to inform the Arkmarschall so he can adjust my Silberschade duty schedule. I hope he won’t mind.”
“He will not. The Arkmarschall told me I have the freedom to decide their training methods, including choosing their mentor. His full resources are being put toward preparing them for this mission, and in a way, he sees them as valuable.”
“That is good. Besides, it is high time young Haurs learned to take command in my absence. So in a way, this is a win–win,” Albrecht said while looking at the ceiling.
“Young Haurs?” Halwen raised an eyebrow. “Haurs is five years older than you.”
Albrecht chuckled. “So you’ve done your research all the way down to my division, huh?” He met Halwen’s gaze. “Well, magic doesn’t care about age. Haurs couldn’t beat me in a duel — so in that sense, he’s the younger one.”
“If that is what you want to believe, Hauptmann.”
A faint shimmer coiled around Albrecht’s hand as a sigil burned briefly in the air. From the spell’s fold, a flask dropped neatly into his palm, the metal cool and sweating with condensation. He loosened the cap; a rich, tart aroma spilled into the space between them — wine. Albrecht held it out without a word. Halwen’s eyes lit up, and he took it with a grin that needed no invitation.
“Anyway, Herr Halwen, how long before they join the Arkanpfad Academy?”
“Three months from now.”
“Which class?”
“They are going into Class Two.”
“Skipping a year? Well, they are age-appropriate for Class Two, but still…”
The Arkanpfad Academy had more of a barracks’ discipline than a scholar’s hall. Officially it trained Unterkreis mages, but the gates stood open to anyone who could prove themselves, and advancement depended less on years than on talent.
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Five classes marked the path upward. Class One buried students in theory, laced with a token taste of combat. Class Two stripped away the books and drilled them in real fighting and battlefield tactics. To enter it, a student had to stand alone in the dueling ring and face an instructor — pass or fall back with the rest.
“So they will at least be able to duel?” Albrecht asked.
“Yes.”
Albrecht studied Vierna in silence, fingers grazing his chin as his breath slipped out slow and measured.
“Well,” he said at last, “with her current mana and the time frame we’re working with, there’s no chance she’ll become a pure mage.” His eyes fixed on her. “Vierna. Come here.”
Vierna stopped her pulse shaping training and walked toward Albrecht, looking confused.
“Has Herr Halwen told you about the Arkanpfad Academy?”
“Yes, Albrecht,” she said, a gleam sparking in her eyes. The thought of entering a school — of finally belonging to one — was something she loved.
“Did he mention the duel?”
Her gaze sank to the ground. Education here meant fighting someone who could probably erase her with a thought. She only hoped her meager ice could land a strike before she was crushed flat by gravity magic — or whatever else the instructor chose to end her with. “He did, on the stagecoach.”
“As your mentor, I have decided you cannot go pure magic. You must become an Arkenfaust.”
Vierna’s stomach tightened. She knew what that meant: not a full elementalist, not a pure ranged mage — but a fighter who bound magic to blade and body. It wasn’t a path she had ever wanted. Sword fighting was… hard. She remembered the fairy tales she’d read, with heroes wielding something called a katana. She tried to picture their elegant movements, but the image slipped away every time. That was why she’d never once considered taking up a sword herself.
“To be honest, I really want to go full pure mage, Alb,” Vierna said.
“That will limit your combat ability, because of your mana.” Albrecht’s gaze pinned her in place, his pale-blue eyes carrying enough weight to make obedience feel like the simplest answer. For a moment, Vierna almost surrendered. But the picture in her mind — herself high above the battlefield, hurling spears of ice down on her enemies — was too precious to abandon to his stare.
“It will also limit the ways you can serve the Reich,” Albrecht went on. “The Arkanpfad Academy’s test is in three months, and if you pursue pure magic, you will not pass.”
Vierna lowered her gaze. His reasoning was sound. But the thought of raining shards of ice from above was too precious to surrender.
“And while yes, you will be an Arkenfaust, that does not mean you cannot go pure mage one day. This is only an alternate method to pass the Arkanpfad entrance. Arkenfaust is still directly linked to magic. You will learn enhancement and magic sword skills. Look at it as another form of magic you will be able to learn and experience.”
Vierna hated how easily he saw through her. A single tilt of his voice, and he pressed on the two things she could never deny — her desperation to prove she was useful, and her hunger to learn magic. If he touched both at once, resistance always crumbled.
“Alright. If it lets me serve better without abandoning magic, I am fine with it,” Vierna said with a smile.
Dreams and desires were important, but serving the Reich was equally so. If she could do both, even if it meant straying a little from her dream, she was willing to accept it.
“Splendid,” Albrecht said. “Now follow me to my armory. We need to pick a weapon that suits you.”
From across the glass, Lina saw this development and grinned. She could rest while Albrecht was gone.
“Herr Halwen, I leave Lina in your capable hands. Please motivate her if she decides to slack off,” Albrecht said.
Halwen rose from his seat and walked toward Lina, who immediately felt a chill. His expression was even stricter than Albrecht’s.
“Now give me a dodecagram.”
“A what, Uncle?”
“A dodecagram. Look, like this.” Halwen shaped it with his hands.
“But I—”
“No buts. Do it.”
“Yes, Uncle.” Lina tried her best to copy what Halwen had shown her.
Across the room, Vierna smiled at the sight of Lina being lectured, then followed Albrecht out.
They entered the armory after a short walk. Inside, rows of melee weapons lined the walls: axes, blades, rapiers, halberds—anything you could name. Albrecht was clearly a connoisseur of weaponry.
“Go ahead. Pick the one most suitable for you,” Albrecht said.
Vierna took in the sheer number of options.
I cannot go halfway now. I want a weapon that deals maximum damage when it hits. The bigger the weapon is, the bigger the damage it would cause.
She pointed at something. “How about this?”
It was a massive war axe, the haft thick as a tree branch and the double-bladed head broad enough to split a wagon in two. The steel edges gleamed with old polish, while the rest was scarred and pitted from battles long past. Along the curve of the blade, someone had crudely carved a line of text: “Lift me if you can.”.
Albrecht forced a grin, the kind that twisted with discomfort, half amusement and half exasperation. “I think something more suitable for your stature is in order, Vierna.”
The idea of her sweeping across the battlefield with such a colossal weapon was amusing, but one problem remained: could she even lift it?
Vierna pointed several weapons, but the problem was always the same. Too big, too heavy. Halberd, warhammer, two-handed mace, even a zweihander everything she pointed at was far too big and heavy.
“Why don’t you start with a smaller blade?” Albrecht suggested.
“But a blade will not deal as much damage as the ones I choose.”
“Well, a blade fits your stature.”
Vierna glanced at her small frame and delicate hands. Albrecht’s comment made sense, but it rubbed her the wrong way.
“Just you wait, Albrecht. When I am grown up, I will be muscular, and this” she pointed at her chest “will be so big that these weapons will look like toys in my hands.”
The joke came out of nowhere, catching Albrecht by surprise. For a moment, he simply blinked at her, then the image of a grown, well-endowed Vierna hefting a massive weapon on the front lines pushed its way into his mind and drew a smirk to his face.
Albrecht chuckled softly, letting his voice take on the same theatrical lilt he had used when he met Vierna.
“Of course, Lady Vierna, and I can’t wait to see that day come. But right now, you are a budding flower, your petals still soft and fragile. Give it time, and you will grow thorns enough to tear through armor. Until then, you need a weapon your hands can truly command.”
He exaggerated the metaphor on purpose, playing off her earlier joke to keep the mood from tightening too much. He also enjoyed Vierna’s company, and if a bit of banter didn’t harm her training, he was more than willing to indulge her with a little theatrics.
“Hmph.”
Despite Albrecht’s guidance, Vierna’s choices remained flashy and impractical: war fans, sai, dual-wielding daggers. They were exactly the kinds of weapons that appealed to someone her age. Albrecht even considered letting her have the war fans, imagining how funny it would look for her to swing them on the battlefield without any wind magic to back them up. The image made him smirk, but he quickly discarded the thought. He was her mentor, after all.
“Okay, Vierna, how about this?” Albrecht pointed to a weapon.
“Huuuuh? That’s plain and small. Would it even do damage if I managed to land a hit?” Vierna complained.
“It would, and it would complement your beauty too. Trust me, it would be a great fit.”
Vierna glanced at the weapon Albrecht had chosen. She tried to picture herself on the battlefield wielding it, but something about the image just did not sit right in her heart.
What Weapon will Vierna use?
