The muffled roar outside the water bubble reached Mavis before she even saw the panic on the faces crowding the field. At first, she thought the sound was the water itself, swirling around her in that strange, comforting current. But then she saw the shapes—blurry figures gathering, waving frantically, instructors shoving through students, Alya tugging at her ears in frustration.
Mavis pressed both hands to the curved wall of water and tried to signal that she was fine.
She pointed to herself.
Gave a thumbs-up.
Gestured in a wide, sweeping motion meant to say: I'm okay. I can breathe. You can all stop screaming now.
But through the distortion of the water, to the instructors and students outside… it looked like she was clawing at the barrier. Like she was banging for help. Like she was suffocating.
One instructor shouted something she couldn't hear—something sharp, panicked—and then three more joined him, forming a line in front of her.
Mavis blinked.
…Why do they look like they're preparing for war?
Her answer came an instant later.
A fist-sized fireball flew toward her head.
She shrieked, instinctively stepping back—but the fireball hit the water barrier and bounced off harmlessly, sizzling out like a spark dropped into a river.
Her eyes widened.
Another fireball.
A rock spike.
A whipping lash of wind.
All bounced off.
The instructors exchanged shocked looks, shouting to each other—words lost in the muffled distortion of her underwater world.
Mavis pressed her palms to the barrier again.
Guys, hello? I'm fine! I can literally breathe—please stop attacking me?
They did not stop.
If anything, they escalated.
The largest instructor—towering, broad-shouldered, carrying the aura of someone who benched students for entertainment—stepped forward and thrust his hands into the ground. Mana pulsed from his core in a wave.
Mavis barely had a second to register it before a boulder tore from the earth and launched toward her in a spinning arc.
She screamed—but the moment it touched her water, the boulder skidded off the surface with a thunk and tumbled harmlessly across the field.
The instructor's expression went from alarm to open-mouthed disbelief.
He turned to his colleagues, shouting something urgent. They all shouted back.
Mavis could only watch, bewildered.
Why are they throwing rocks at me?! What did I do?!
Jerry's voice crackled into her mind, annoyed but worried.
"They think you're dying, you idiot."
I'M NOT DYING!
"Try signaling again."
She did.
Big, exaggerated head shakes.
Both hands waving in a "NO!" motion.
Pointing at her lungs, inhaling water, giving a thumbs-up again.
But to the watching crowd, it looked like—
A student drowning.
A desperate flail for help.
A silent cry.
"Why can't they understand?!" Mavis shrieked underwater.
Jerry sighed loudly.
"Because you look like a sea-creature in a bubble tank. Just dispel it."
Right. Dispel.
Except—
She had no idea how she made this barrier in the first place.
Or how to undo it.
Her heart thumped. The water thickened around her, responding to her rising panic. The bubble brightened, shimmering with unstable mana.
Outside, a student screamed:
"Her mana's destabilizing! She's going to explode!"
Another voice—"GET THE HEADMASTER!"
Then an instructor yelled to the others and pointed at Mavis. The instructors braced again, gathering more mana. They looked ready to unleash a full-scale barrage to crack her bubble open.
Mavis froze.
"Oh hell no," she muttered through the water.
Mana surged inside her instinctively.
Strengthening the barrier.
Hardening it.
She hadn't meant to do that.
Outside, the instructors saw the water pulse and brighten—
—and they thought she was suffocating and panicking.
Which, to be fair, she was, just not for the reason they believed.
The boulder-throwing instructor pointed at her and shouted. The others nodded grimly, raising their hands again.
A second barrage formed.
Mavis felt the mana outside compress, swirl, condense.
She waved her hands wildly.
NO! STOP! I'M FINE! PLEASE—
But the water barrier made every frantic movement look like a drowning seal.
She closed her eyes.
T-think. Dispelling. You dispel magic by reversing the flow. Undoing the pathways. Cutting the mana circulation. Right? Right?!
She pressed her palms against the watery surface.
Mana inside her veins shuddered—still swirling chaotically.
She forced herself to breathe slowly.
Inhale water.
Exhale water.
Feel the current.
Find the thread holding the spell together.
The thread was tangled, coiled tightly around her core like a rope made of liquid.
She found it.
Pulled—
—and the water resisted.
She pushed mana through her pathways again, then reversed it sharply.
Something cracked.
Not physically—but magically.
Then the barrier trembled.
She inhaled.
Focused again.
Reversed her mana flow a second time—
And the bubble burst.
The water fell in a collapsing ring around her feet, soaking the ground and splashing several students like an unexpectedly aggressive puddle.
The field went dead silent.
Mavis staggered forward, water dripping from her clothes and hair, ready to speak—to explain—to say I'm fine, please stop panicking—
A shadow fell over her face.
A split second later, something WHISTLED past her cheek.
A large rock—one that had already been thrown—flew inches from her nose and smashed into the field behind her, exploding in a spray of dirt and dust.
She gasped and froze.
Because the water barrier had vanished—
—but the attacks already launched had not.
She barely had time to register this before another projectile raced toward her—
—a fireball, bright and burning, aimed directly at her chest.
Then a wind blade.
Then a smaller rock.
All three were already in motion, cast during the panic.
And now—
now they were coming at her with nothing between her and the impact.
Mavis's body moved before her mind did.
Her core pulsed, mana shooting to her fingertips.
Water.
She reached for water.
The remnants of the burst bubble.
The droplets still falling.
The moisture clinging to her skin.
The thin sheen across the ground.
Her magic answered.
A pulse tore from her, instinctive, frantic. The moisture around her condensed, forming a thin—too thin—ripple of water.
It wasn't enough to shield her.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn't have time to think.
Didn't have time to cast.
Didn't have time to—
The fireball faced her—
Jerry hissed loud and sharp—
"MOVE!"
Mavis braced—
And then—
And then—
The world shifted.
A shadow crossed the ground.
A breeze of mana swept past.
And something—someone—stepped in front of her.
The fireball struck—
—and evaporated.
Just vanished.
Like it had been swallowed.
The wind blade collided—
and shattered.
The stones crumbled into dust.
Mavis opened her eyes slowly.
The shimmering remnants of dissolved spells drifted around her like dying fireflies.
In front of her stood—
Princess Seraphina Valehart.
Her sword arm was extended slightly, mana crackling faintly along the edge of her blade. Her hazel eyes glittered dangerously—warm gold overtaken by sharp fury.
She turned her head just enough that Mavis saw the expression she wore.
Not stoicism.
Not regal poise.
But something far more alarming.
Rage.
Cold, precise, controlled rage.
Directed not at Mavis—
—but at the instructors.
Seraphina raised her voice, sharp and piercing.
"What is the meaning of this?"
The instructors froze mid-step.
One stammered, "Y-Your Highness, w-we—she was—"
"She was what?" Seraphina's voice remained even, but her mana flared. "Casting? Panicking? And your solution was to launch live spells at a minor?"
Her gaze swept over the field, over every instructor who had fired at Mavis.
Several swallowed hard.
Seraphina's jaw clenched. "Arouz Academy prides itself on discipline. Intelligence. Measured force. You shame each of those values today."
Mavis stood behind her, dripping wet and trembling—not from fear, but from the shock of what nearly happened.
Of what did happen.
Seraphina finally looked back at Mavis.
Their eyes met.
"Are you okay?" Seraphina questioned indifferently.
Mavis shook her head, breath catching. "Yeah..."
Jerry muttered on her shoulder.
"More or less."
Seraphina's gaze flickered to the snake… then back to Mavis.
"Good."
Only then did she turn away, addressing the instructors again.
"Next time," she said, "confirm what you see before you fire."
Then, with a final glare sharp enough to cut stone, she stepped out of the circle of scorched earth where Mavis had stood—
leaving behind a stunned field, trembling instructors,
and a girl who had just discovered she could breathe underwater.
And who couldn't stop staring at the princess walking away.