The adrenaline from my silent, eye staring contest with the Demon Prince began to fade the moment we stepped off the polished obsidian of the Central Arena. And as anyone who has ever survived a massive mana crash knows, what replaces the rush is usually a hideous cocktail of exhaustion, hunger, and a profound, personal hatred for the laws of physics.

  ?My knees felt like they were made of old jelly. My head throbbed with a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like an Orcish war drum. And my hands, which had been clenched into fists of righteous fury for the last hour, were now trembling with the aftershocks of anxiety.

  ?“Okay,” Roc-ta chirped, bouncing on the balls of her combat boots as if she hadn’t just survived a near-riot. “Let’s go! Squad 13 dorms are probably… uh… somewhere that way!”

  ?She pointed a clawed finger vaguely towards the horizon, where the great, golden sun of Aeridor was beginning to dip behind a cluster of floating towers, painting the sky in bruises of purple and orange.

  ?I looked at her finger. Then I looked at the horizon. Then I looked down at my suitcase.

  ?It was a beautiful suitcase. A masterpiece of craftsmanship from the Royal Luggage Guild. Vintage wyvern-leather, polished brass buckles, reinforced corners of dwarven steel, and the crest of De Valois embossed on the side. Back in the palace, sitting at the foot of my canopy bed, it had looked elegant. It had looked like the start of a grand saga.

  ?Here, in my sweating, trembling hand, it felt less like luggage and more like a container filled with lead bars, dead dreams, and the accumulated sins of my ancestors.

  ?“Somewhere that way,” I repeated flatly, my voice devoid of hope. “You mean, past the edge of the known world?”

  ?“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Val!” Roc-ta grabbed the sleeve of my heavy travel coat which was also starting to feel like a torture device designed by a sadistic inquisitor and tugged. “It’s a nice walk! The air is fresh, the mana is flowing, and my nose tells me someone is roasting Boar-Ribs about two kilometers east! Ribs, Val! Nature’s candy!”

  ?I groaned, heaving the suitcase up with a grunt that was decidedly un-princess-like. It sounded more like a dying walrus summoning help.

  ?“Lead on, Pathfinder,” I muttered, adjusting my grip.

  ?Roc-ta paused, her ears swiveling toward me. “Pathfinder? Is that a rank? Do I get a badge?”

  ?“It’s a figure of speech, Roc-ta. Just walk.”

  ?We left the grandeur of the Central District behind. The transition was stark, like stepping off a stage and into the backstage machinery. The pristine white marble and gold inlays of the noble quarter, where the air smelled of expensive incense and hypocrisy, gave way to broader, functional avenues paved with grey granite. The crowds thinned out, but the scale of the city seemed to grow even larger, looming over us like a stone giant.

  ?“So,” I huffed, switching my suitcase from my right hand to my left after only fifty meters. My palm was already starting to sting, the leather handle biting into my skin. “You seem to know your way around this labyrinth. What is the layout of this place? Did a Titan just drop buildings from the sky and hope for the best? Because from an architectural perspective, this is chaos.”

  ?Roc-ta laughed, her tail swishing behind her like a metronome set to ‘allegro’. “No! It’s super organized! Aeridor is a circle. A big pie cut into seven slices.”

  ?She held up her hand, counting on her clawed fingers.

  ?“Seven Districts. Seven distinct zones for seven distinct vibes.”

  ?She pointed to a cluster of squat, sturdy buildings to our far right. Smoke billowed from a hundred chimneys, turning the sky above them a soot-grey. The sound of hammering echoed like a rhythmic heartbeat, a constant CLANG-CLANG-CLANG that vibrated in the pavement.

  ?“Over there is the Dwarf District,” she explained. “It’s loud, it smells like burning coal and molten iron, and the ale is stronger than a healing potion. But don’t go there without earplugs, or you’ll be deaf by the next moon.”

  ?She swiveled her finger to the opposite side, where tall, spindly spires made of white wood and iridescent glass pierced the sky. They looked fragile, like spun sugar, connected by delicate walkways of silver.

  ?“That’s the Elf District. It smells like moon-flowers, starlight, and judgment. The sidewalks are heated—can you believe it?—so they never get mud on their boots. But they have a curfew for ‘disturbing the peace’, which apparently includes sneezing, laughing, or walking too heavily.”

  ?I chuckled dryly, shifting the weight of my bag again. “Sounds lovely. Let me guess, the Human District is the boring beige one in the middle?”

  ?“Pretty much,” Roc-ta grinned, showing her fangs. “Lots of bakeries, lots of offices, lots of rules. It’s safe, but kind of flavorless. Like unseasoned gruel.”

  ?We walked further. My boots, which were designed for riding horses and looking intimidating in a throne room, were absolutely not designed for hiking across a metropolis. A blister was beginning to form on my left heel, announcing its presence with a sharp, malicious sting every time my foot hit the pavement.

  ?Step. Ouch. Step. Ouch.

  ?“And where we just were,” Roc-ta continued, gesturing behind us to the glowing arena, “is the Central District. That’s where the rich folks, the high nobles, and the administration live. It’s basically a giant vault for gold.”

  ?“I noticed,” I muttered, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. “I think the air there cost five silver pieces per breath. I’m surprised Solon didn’t tax us for loitering.”

  ?“Then you have the Beastfolk District,” Roc-ta said, her voice softening a bit. “That’s where I live. Or… used to live. It’s vibrant. A bit chaotic. We don’t really do ‘zoning laws’. If you want to build a hut on top of another hut, you just ask your neighbor if he minds the shade. It smells like earth and spices and life.”

  ?She smiled fondly, probably remembering a specific pile of bones or a favorite tree.

  ?“And then…”

  ?She hesitated. Her cheerful demeanor faltered. She pointed a claw towards a darkened sector of the city we were currently skirting around.

  ?The buildings there looked different. They were jagged, made of black stone that seemed to absorb the light. They looked ruined, covered in thick, dark moss that pulsed faintly. The streetlamps there didn’t glow white; they flickered with a sickly purple hue.

  ?“The Demon District,” she whispered.

  ?I stopped walking. I dropped my suitcase for a moment to flex my aching fingers. I looked at the dark skyline of that sector. Even from here, the air felt colder. A shiver ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the evening breeze.

  ?“Wait,” I said slowly. “That’s where I was earlier. Where I met the Tiger.”

  ?Roc-ta nodded vigorously, her ears pressing back. “Yeah! That used to be the home of the Demon delegation, fifteen years ago. Before the Great Isolation. When they left… or were kicked out… nobody wanted to live there. The magic there is… weird. Heavy. It tastes like copper on your tongue.”

  ?She kicked a pebble, sending it skittering into the gutter.

  ?“So, it became a slum. The ‘Lost Quarter’. It’s mostly inhabited by Beastkin who don’t fit in the Beastfolk district, or outcasts who want to disappear. It’s basically a giant lair for things that don’t want to be found.”

  ?“So I wandered into a haunted, magical ruin on my first hour,” I summarized, wiping sweat from my forehead. “Good job, Valerie. Excellent survival instincts. The Gods of Wisdom must be laughing at me.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  ?“But the biggest slice of the pie…” Roc-ta spun around, opening her arms wide as we turned a corner, revealing the vista before us. “Is The Campus.”

  ?I dropped my suitcase.

  ?“You have got to be kidding me.”

  ?I had expected a university. Maybe a few large buildings, a library, a park with some statues of old wizards.

  ?What lay before us was a city within a city.

  ?It was colossal.

  ?A massive wall, separate from the outer city wall and clearly reinforced with defensive runes, encircled an area that stretched as far as the eye could see. Inside, thousands of buildings rose like a forest of stone and glass. I saw dormitories that looked like fortresses, lecture halls the size of cathedrals, and training grounds that could host a small war.

  ?Floating above the campus were smaller islands of rock, connected by glowing bridges of light. Waterfalls cascaded from the sky, vanishing into mist before they hit the ground.

  ?“It houses almost a hundred thousand students,” Roc-ta said proudly, puffing out her chest as if she had built it herself brick by brick. “It’s fully self-sufficient. We have our own power grid, our own water filtration, our own laws, our own economy.”

  ?“It’s a state,” I whispered. “It’s not a school. It’s a sovereign nation run by teenagers with magic wands. That sounds terrifying.”

  ?But what caught my eye wasn’t the size. It was the security.

  ?Flanking the colossal iron gates of the Campus—gates that looked big enough to admit a dragon without it ducking—were two… things.

  ?They were Rock Trolls. But calling them trolls felt like calling a hurricane a ‘bit of wind’. They were walking mountains. Each one was the size of a three-story house. Their skin wasn’t skin; it was rough, grey granite, cracked and weathered by centuries of erosion.

  ?And etched into that living stone were glowing blue runes. They pulsed rhythmically, a low thrum-thrum sound that vibrated in the soles of my boots.

  ?One of the Trolls shifted its weight.

  ?BOOM.

  ?The ground shook. Dust fell from its shoulders like dandruff. It let out a breath that sounded like a steam engine releasing pressure—a massive hiss of white vapor.

  ?“Are those…” I swallowed, my throat dry as parchment. “Are those the hall monitors?”

  ?“Gatekeepers!” Roc-ta chirped, waving enthusiastically at the left Troll. “Hi, Rocky! Looking solid today! Have you lost weight? You look very sedimentary!”

  ?The Troll slowly turned its massive, boulder-like head. Two eyes that looked like glowing sapphires focused on us. It grunted—a sound like tectonic plates grinding together—and went back to staring at the horizon.

  ?“They check for unauthorized magic and banned items,” Roc-ta explained as we walked towards the gate, passing between the massive stone feet that could crush us into paste without noticing. “Don’t worry, as long as you don’t have a Void Bomb in your bag, they ignore you.”

  ?“I have three pairs of clean underwear, a jar of face cream, and a book on political theory I can’t open,” I muttered, keeping a wary eye on the Troll’s massive fist, which was resting on the ground and was larger than the carriage I arrived in. “Unless they consider bad fashion sense a crime, I think I’m safe.”

  ?We passed through the gate.

  ?The transition was immediate. The air inside the Campus felt charged. It crackled against my skin, smelling of ozone and old parchment. It was the residue of thousands of spells being cast simultaneously, a background radiation of magic.

  ?But for me, the magic wasn’t the problem.

  ?The problem was the walking.

  ?“Roc-ta,” I said, my voice tight, dragging my suitcase over a patch of gravel. “My suitcase is getting heavier. I think it’s eating matter from the atmosphere to gain mass. It’s evolving.”

  ?“We’re almost at the dorm sector!” Roc-ta encouraged me, skipping ahead. “I memorized the brochure! I have a hunter’s memory for maps!”

  ?She started rattling off facts as we walked down a tree-lined avenue that seemed endless. The trees were blue, by the way. Bioluminescent blue willows that wept light onto the path.

  ?“Okay, so living arrangements! It’s super cool. Every student gets an apartment share.”

  ?“Share?” I asked suspiciously, stopping to switch hands again. “Define share. Are we talking about sharing a kitchen, or sharing a bunk bed?”

  ?“Well, you have a common room, a kitchen, and a dining area. And then five bedrooms branching off. So you live with four others. Your squad!”

  ?“Okay,” I nodded slowly. “That sounds manageable. Five people. I can handle four roommates. As long as they aren’t… you know… weird. Or loud. Or messy.”

  ?I thought of the fish-girl I saw earlier. Too late for ‘normal’, I supposed.

  ?“And the bathrooms?” I asked, dreading the answer. Back at the palace, I had a bathroom the size of a ballroom, with a bathtub carved from a single piece of rose quartz and water scented with essential oils.

  ?“Oh, that’s efficient too!” Roc-ta beamed. “Per four apartments—so twenty students—there is a shared Sanitation Block in the hallway! Showers, toilets, the works!”

  ?I stopped dead in the middle of the path.

  ?“Excuse me?”

  ?Roc-ta stopped and looked back. “The Sanitation Block!”

  ?“Shared?” My voice went up an octave. “With twenty people? Strangers? In the hallway?”

  ?Roc-ta nodded happily. “Yeah! It builds community! You meet your neighbors while brushing your teeth!”

  ?“What did you say?!” I retorted, horrified. “You’re telling me I have to walk down a public hallway, wrapped in a towel, potentially passing a Minotaur or a Goblin or… or the Prince of Darkness, just to maintain basic hygiene?”

  ?“Well, yeah. But there are separate facilities! Like, stalls and stuff!”

  ?“I’m a princess,” I whispered, clutching my forehead. “I’m a banished, disowned princess, but I still have standards. Communal bathrooms are a violation of the Great Treaty of Sentient Rights!”

  ?“The what Treaty?” Roc-ta tilted her head, confused. “Is that a Wizard Guild?”

  ?“It’s a universal concept of dignity!” I shouted at the sky. “And this… this is a crime against modesty! Forced exposure! Fungal risks! The sheer lack of privacy!”

  ?“You worry too much,” Roc-ta laughed. “Wolves go in the woods. This is luxury!”

  ?“I am not a wolf!”

  ?“Not with that attitude,” she grinned. “Come on! There’s more!”

  ?“More?” I asked weakly. “How can there be more?”

  ?“Corvee!” Roc-ta said, clapping her hands as if she was announcing we won the lottery.

  ?“Bless you.”

  ?“No, Corvee! Cleaning duty! Since there are so many of us, we have to keep our own floors clean. We rotate shifts. Sweeping, mopping, scrubbing the Sanitation Block…”

  ?I felt my soul leave my body. It ascended towards the blue willows, waving goodbye.

  ?“Scrubbing,” I repeated, my voice hollow. “Me. Scrubbing a toilet shared by twenty teenagers with magical digestive systems. Teenagers who eat magical nuts and drink potions.”

  ?“If we leave a mess, the Floor Prefect gives us minus points!” Roc-ta added helpfully. “Every floor has a Prefect. They are usually older students. They manage the dorm disputes and inspect the cleaning.”

  ?“I hate this place,” I stated calmly. “I haven’t even seen my bed yet, and I already want to burn it down. Is arson a valid reason for expulsion? Because I might take the risk.”

  ?“You’ll get used to it!” Roc-ta slapped my back again. She had a habit of doing that. It was like being hit by a friendly sledgehammer wrapped in velvet.

  ?We kept walking.

  ?And walking.

  ?And walking.

  ?The sun had set completely now. The magical streetlamps flickered to life—orbs of floating light that drifted above the paths like curious spirits. The Campus was beautiful at night, I had to admit. The towers glowed, the waterfalls sparkled in the moonlight, and the air was filled with the soft hum of magic.

  ?But beauty doesn’t cure foot pain. And beauty doesn’t make a suitcase lighter.

  ?My left boot was now actively trying to murder my heel. I could feel the blister popping and reforming. My right arm was numb from the suitcase. My travel cloak felt like it weighed fifty kilos, dragging me down into the earth.

  ?I was sweaty, tired, cranky, and suffering from a severe case of culture shock.

  ?Meanwhile, Roc-ta was skipping. Literally skipping.

  ?“Look at that tree! It’s blue!” she pointed.

  ?“I see it.”

  ?“Look at that statue! It moves!”

  ?“I see it.”

  ?“Look at that bug! It’s huge!”

  ?“Please don’t show me the bug!.”

  ?“Roc-ta,” I gasped, stopping to lean against a lamppost. I dropped the suitcase. It made a sound like a dead body hitting the floor. THUD. “Please tell me… we are close. Please tell me we aren’t migrating to another continent.”

  ?Roc-ta stopped and sniffed the air. She looked at a holographic map projected from a signpost nearby. She tilted her head, her ears twitching as she calculated the distance.

  ?“Yep!” she said brightly. “We are making great time!”

  ?“Great,” I panted, clutching my side. “Because if I take one more step, my legs are going to file a petition for separation. They are going to leave me here.”

  ?“We just have to cross the Magical Arts Quad, go past the Greenhouse of Carnivorous Flora, and then down the hill to the outskirts.”

  ?She turned to me with a dazzling, sharp-toothed smile.

  ?“I think it’s only about fifteen more minutes of walking!”

  ?The silence that followed was heavy.

  ?I stared at her.

  ?“Fifteen minutes?” I repeated. My voice was dangerously low.

  ?“Yeah! Maybe twenty if we walk slow! Or thirty if we stop to look at the carnivorous plants!”

  ?I looked at my suitcase. I looked at the dark path ahead. I looked at my boots.

  ?“Roc-ta,” I said sweetly.

  ?“Yeah, Val?”

  ?“If you say ‘fifteen minutes’ one more time, I am going to open this suitcase, stuff you inside it, and mail you back to the Beast District via Dragon-Courier. I will pay the gold myself.”

  ?Roc-ta blinked. “But… dragons are expensive.”

  ?“I will invent a cheaper dragon,” I hissed, picking up the handle of my torture device. “I will engineer a mechanical pigeon just to get rid of you.”

  ?“You’re funny when you’re tired,” Roc-ta giggled, completely unfazed by my threat. She grabbed the handle of my suitcase.

  ?“Here, let me help. Beast strength, remember?”

  ?She lifted the heavy leather trunk with one hand as if it were a coin purse. She swung it over her shoulder effortlessly.

  ?“Come on! Race you to the Carnivorous Greenhouse! Last one there is a rotten egg!”

  ?She took off running.

  ?“Hey!” I shouted, stumbling after her. “That has my underwear in it! Come back!”

  ?I forced my aching legs into a jog, chasing the energetic wolf-girl into the night.

  ?Almost there, I thought, wincing as my blister throbbed. Almost at the finish line.

  ?I looked at Roc-ta’s retreating figure. She was fast, wild, and utterly untroubled by the complexities of life.

  ?“Wait up!” I yelled into the darkness. “And if that greenhouse tries to eat me, I’m using you as a shield! I mean it! I have zero loyalty right now!”

  ?Roc-ta’s laughter floated back to me on the night breeze.

  ?“You can try!” she shouted back.

  ?I ran. I ran towards my new home, towards my new “team,” and towards a destiny that was waiting for me behind a door I hadn’t even reached yet.

  ?And as I ran, ignoring the pain in my feet, I held onto one single, comforting thought:

  ?At least I don’t have to deal with the Prince.