Chapter 173. Weeping Forest
After wandering for hours with no clear destination, I eventually gave up on finding an answer.
No matter how long I stared at the collapsed rift or traced the fading trail of its lingering presence, no answer came.
My head ached from overthinking. In the end, I decided to return. Technically, the mission was over—the rift had vanished. There was nothing left to do here.
But returning to the Academy... that was a different problem.
Running all the way back to the dorms on foot would take weeks, if not months. And even with [Phantom Surge], the distance would barely be halved. I had neither the stamina nor the motivation to keep pushing forward aimlessly.
So I decided to stay put, wait for further instructions—maybe Miss Celia would send word, maybe not. Either way, there was no point in torturing myself with questions I had no answers for.
When I finally dragged myself back to the hotel, I wasn’t expecting anything.
Yet the moment I stepped into the dining room on the lower floor, I found them.
The girls.
They were already seated, each in their own little world, yet strangely unified in their silence. Verena glanced at me. For once, she didn’t spit out some sarcastic remark. Smart of her. My mood wasn’t exactly open to banter.
Kaelira sat diagonally across the table, twirling her fork absentmindedly through the noodles in her bowl. She wasn’t eating, just watching. Her eyes were half-lidded.