It was early morning when the goblins start their work, a full legion of worker goblins march inside the base of the school's main tower in disciplined ranks, each of them holding their own specific work tools.

As I watch these goblins from the window, the only thing crossing my mind is how much money is spent on paying them to fix the whole tower, not to mention the many materials they'll need.

A dragon attack, it's hard to believe that just happened. I've only heard of them in stories, I never thought there comes a day that I'd witness its legendary destructive powers, even harder to believe that the school I'm enrolled in survived an encounter with it.

"Strange for a student to stay when there's no reason to stay". I hear the headmistress say and found her walking up beside me and looking outside the window with me. "Most are very eager to take advantage of the sudden break they receive".

"I did have a concussion", I point out.

"And I saw a girl that broke her arm at yesterday's event going into town for shopping. It seems nothing could stop those girls from enjoying themselves".

"Well, watching the goblins is pretty enjoyable in its own way…"

"Watching the goblins?" The headmistress asks, brows raised in curiosity. "Why, what could be so interesting about those goblins that captivate you to stay?"

I scratch the back of my head as I begin to realize how ridiculous I'll sound. "Well, you see…"

I turn towards the window and point outside, hoping the headmistress would see my point. "There look, the way they hold their brooms and other work tools up looks like they're soldiers marching to battle".

The headmistress takes a few second to finally see my point, once she does, she lets out a small chuckle. "You have an interesting imagination".

She walks closer to the window, gazing upon the aftermath of yesterday's attack. "Those goblins are not the most expensive, but they'll get the work done. The dragon attack was most unfortunate, and the school needs some moment to recover fully from it, both mentally and financially". She turns to me and gives me a soft smile. "Especially financially".

"I was just worrying about that".

"Don't worry too much about that, Mr Franklin, it may be costly, but our priority here is to teach, and that is worth all the money in the world".

The headmistress is such a nice lady, I can see why Michelle is very fond of her. Despite her small stature, the woman has just the right size of heart, maybe even bigger than most. Her words might not be something I newly hear, but the way the woman speaks and her kind smile just makes her words travel further.

Luna Nova is lucky to have her as the principal.

There's really nothing else to do here, seeing how deserted the school is, counting out the worker goblins of course. So after the Headmistress bid farewell, I decided to visit the tower. The fields were busy, fairy workers, mostly goblins, haul carriages of rubble and debris made by the dragon. The most interesting part of the scene however, are the goblins themselves, they work in such ways that would make normal architects bite their nails in horror.

Towering scaffolds, the absurd kinds you won't find in any normal construction sites, are erected high up, hugging the tower. They're crude and painfully rustic at some places, with numerous gussets on it and parts of the scaffolds swaying with the wind and groaning with each movement of the worker goblins traversing them. Attached to them are numerous rope elevators constructed of simple ropes and buckets. They're used to carry all sorts of things from construction materials to even goblins. Slides were constructed for travel across the scaffoldings as well, slick wooden platforms connects from the uppermost level of the scaffolding unto the bottom, used by the daring goblins to travel down the scaffolds with relative ease. The whole construction seems terribly crude and basic, but it seems to work well enough for the goblins and it seems that's all they care. The whole thing looks like something out of a 90s cartoon, where the laws of physics are as mythical as my self-esteem.

I try to make my way to the base of the tower which isn't an easy feat. Trying to not step on a goblin takes some great amount of agility and perception. It takes a while, but I finally made to the more open space at the front of the now broken entrance to the tower. That's when I notice the many teachers around this construction site, all helping the construction in one way or another. I notice the broom instructor, Miss Nelson, along with other teachers ride their brooms to help carrying the work materials up to the tower. While the students are off making the most of the vacation, the teachers stay and work harder than their regular days.

I try to enter the base of the tower, using the massive entrance made by the dragon. A great heap of rubble still sits there, forcing one to climb up it to enter the base of the tower and towards the labyrinth's entrance. Inside, I see the familiar massive corridor where Professor Ursula gave our briefing for the treasure hunt, some of the rubble are already cleared. There're less workers, only a handful. It was then I notice the rubble I'm stepping on begins to quiver, and as soon as I take my foot off of it, it rises to the air with a light glow surrounding it. The levitated rubble quickly floats away from me and towards a stack of neatly stacked rubbles, beside it is a familiar blonde haired witch.

Diana turns to me and raises a curious brow. "I didn't expect to see you here".

"I could say the same about you", I reply.

"I'm simply here to help. I didn't have any important matters elsewhere so I decided to stay and ease the work of the teachers and the workers".

Diana turns back to her work, waving her wand and quickly another set of rubbles fly to her stack. "It doesn't settle right for me if I enjoy my time outside when the teachers work harder than ever to make the school available again as quickly as possible".

A sentiment I share, though hers backed up by action.

"Anyway, how's your head?"

"Still working", I answer, knocking on it lightly. There's a pause between us then, and I'm reminded of the question that's been bugging me ever since I got the injury. Before I could even think it through, my tongue already moves. "Did you tend to my injury?"

Diana pause her work and looks to me. "No, what's the matter?"

I feel my cheeks growing warm for no reason. "W-what's the matter? What's the matter with me just asking that?"

Diana pauses, confused. "…nothing? But why are you—"

"Anyway, where are Hannah and Barbara? It must be terrible of them to leave you here while you're working hard!"

Diana blinks, she's still unsure when she says, "They're in the main building, doing teacher's errant. If you're looking for them, you can—".

I run a hand through my face. "Diana, never mind, just get back to work".

Diana blinks again, bewildered with the way I act. Thankfully she soon ceases her questions and gets back to work without another word on the topic.

That went smoothly!

Diana might've taken my request too seriously, she remains silent as she continues lifting rubbles and clearing dusts off the floor with her magic, while I stand idle on the side with nothing to do or say.

Feeling too idle, my mind and eyes start to wander. My eyes found the broken gates of the labyrinth, now just as I remembered them last—nothing but a pile of rocks and metal on the ground. A thought soon occurs to me, so while Diana's busy with minding her own work, I study the broken gates of the labyrinth. Something about it reminds of a certain someone and the threat it poses.

"Say, Diana, don't you think it's quite dangerous?".

Diana turns to me. "What is?"

"The labyrinth at its current state. There's lots of treasures inside and with the gates broken anyone could just go and grab them, right?"

Diana abruptly pauses her work and stares at me. "If you doubt the honesty of the workers here than I'm sorry to say I disagree with you", she says.

"Nothing like that at all!" I exclaim. "What I mean are burglars, treasure hunters more like".

I notice Diana's eyes slightly widen at the suggestion I just made. She tells me, "Luna Nova is one of the most well guarded place to store magical relics, I doubt the boldest treasure hunters would dare step a foot on this ground".

Well, I can't say what she said is entirely true.

Diana seems to notice the doubt I have for her words, so she elaborates, "The workers are to stay the night near this building, even with the gates open this place will be fairly well-guarded. And regarding the workers, yes, as I previously said I trust them to keep their hands to themselves".

"I'll trust your word on that then, but still, I think the teachers should be informed of the possible dangers of those treasure hunters I mentioned".

Diana takes a thoughtful moment before she nods. "I see no harm in that, yes, you can if you want to". She then stops the chatter and continues on her work, giving her spells serious attention as she controls multiple rubbles at the same time.

Seeing her work hard while I'm standing here doing basically nothing wakes up my guilty conscience. "Here, let me lend a hand".

I pull out my wand and search for something that needs attention and at the same time I'm able to work with, something of my league and capacity.

The scraping sound of broom against the smooth marble floor takes Diana's attention. She turns from her work to look to the source of the sound. With an arched brow, she asks me "A broom?".

I stop my sweeping to reply. "I-I don't really have much magic left in me because of yesterday, this is really the only thing I can do today".

There's a brief silence between the two of us, until Diana says without a nod. "I see". She minds me no further and turns to her work in peace.

I can only nervously increase the intensity of my sweeping to combat this feeling of uselessness I have, while whispering nervous curses at my incredible talent in magic.

It's past sunset, the goblins had already stopped their work a while ago. Diana is off to meet with the Headmistress to inform her of my suggestion while I wait here atop a pile of rubble, a warm cup of coco on one hand and a warm paper bag of fresh bread on my lap, a prize the both of us received for 'our' participation in helping the goblins.

The nightly silence and the warm food and drink make the atmosphere one worth writing down about.

Light footsteps echo near the reduced heap of rubble that is the entrance, and sure enough, Diana appears there, wearing the outdoor uniform alongside her blue ribbon witch hat. "Well, I must say your suggestion was sound, the Headmistress and Miss Finnelan agreed with you".

"Really? I honestly expected them not to", I take a good gulp of the warm coco. "But never mind that, Diana, don't you want to taste this wonderful meal the teachers so generously gave us?"

Diana shakes her head, "Go on ahead, I'll need to cast the barrier for this gate first".

Diana walks towards the labyrinth gate and draws her wand, she holds it in front of her and closes her eyes as she begins to concentrate.

Light begins to gather at the tip of her wand, and now comes the incantations. As Diana utters her spell, the light grows in intensity and colour, and soon a misty and transparent barrier begins to form at the base of the broken gate.

I stare in awe at her work of spell, standing up, I walk towards her with a bread in hand.

Diana keeps her eyes closed and continues her chanting. The mist rises until it fully envelops the broken gate, forming a tall misty fog gate that blocks the entrance to the labyrinth.

Only then does her chanting stop and she finally opens her eyes. Diana flicks her wand lightly and the light fades from its tip.

"Cool", I mutter.

Diana returns her wand to her belt. "I've consulted with the teachers and they gave me their permission to use this. It's a very ancient spell, used by witches of old to guard doorways or protect something precious, be it treasure or even living, important people".

Curious, I pick up a pebble and throw it towards the misty wall. To my surprise, instead of being a concrete conjuration, the wall seems to act just like its appearance. As the pebble connects with the wall, instead of immediately bouncing off it became momentarily suspended mid-air before finally bouncing off. A small ripple also spreads from the pebble's impact.

An amused grin creeps up my lips, one that Diana notices well and makes her arch her brows.

I can do this for the rest of the night!

"Miss Finnelan entrusted me to place barrier spells at every entrances to the labyrinth, this was the last" Diana informs me.

"Every?" I ask. "There's more than one?"

"Yes, there are. They're scattered around the school, mostly in the forests. Most of them had collapsed due to natural causes but there are still a hidden few that survived".

"You went to the forest at this time of night? And you did that all alone?"

Diana lightly shrugs. "I've done night patrols numerous times, another won't be so different"

That's not exactly the point, it's the matter of pride here. Why didn't she take me with her? I feel more useless than I had ever been!

Diana walks towards the misty wall. "This is an interesting spell", she knocks the misty wall with her hand, and a water-like ripple spreads on the misty surface. "It's connected with each erected barriers".

"That's cool, that's very cool", I remark, gazing onto the peculiar mist in awe. There's a pause between us, mainly from me, before I speak again. "What does that mean?".

"It means that if either one of them detects an attempt to pass through, a ripple could be seen on each and every barrier".

"Neat".

I walk closer to the misty wall and give a look towards Diana, she quickly understands my intention and lightly nods.

With a smile, I hold up an arm and punch the misty wall with all my might, producing a deep, ghastly sound that resonates from the impact. I could feel my punch quickly suspended and rebounded from the mist, and a massive ripple soon follows, spreading to the edges of the misty wall.

"I sure hope that didn't raise any false alarms". I remark.

I was about to continue my praise both to the impeccable spell and Diana, but a familiar sound returns.

We both turn towards the misty wall again and before us, a ripple, bigger than the one from seconds ago, appears on the misty wall, followed by a deeper and louder sound from the impact.

We look at each other, and before any of us could draw a less alarming conclusion, another ripple spreads across the misty wall, followed by a much deeper and intense impact sound.

"Th-that's not right. Doesn't that mean someone's doing that to the barrier?"

"True, and I'm sure it's not from your punch". Diana says. Before her words could register to my mind, she's already preparing to mount her broom to depart.

I turn to her and realize what she's thinking. "Wait, are we really doing this?"

Avoiding the risk of being spotted by any potential trespasser, Diana forces herself to take the dangerous route and ride her broom through the thick of the forest. The cold night wind bites through as we fly, there's not a single light, and we're speeding at incredible speed. But Diana has not an ounce of fear or doubt in her choice, and seeing her so forces me to feel the same.

Despite the dark, and the speed of our flight, Diana manages to dodge pass the trees with relative ease. More often than not I thought a collision is inevitable only to see her perform incredible manoeuvres to dodge the obstacle.

After long, both of us could finally see the forest edge to a clearing. Diana increases her speed and exits the forest in a grand spectacle, twigs and leaves cover her path, and a tall cloud of dust forms as she skilfully pulls the broom to a stop.

We stop in the middle of a clearing, on the other side is an entrance to a cave sitting on the base of a small hill. On the entrance stands a wall of fog identical to the one erected at the tower.

"I-I'm still alive", I gasp, feeling every bit of my body.

Diana, however, is too occupied to hear me. She scans the area quickly, her eyes meticulously shifting through the treelines, never remaining in one spot for too long.

Only after a full minute does Diana steer the broom closer to the cave entrance. Her movement was steady yet careful, her eyes were calm yet attentive.

We hop off the broom and Diana quickly approaches the fog wall she erected. She does a quick inspection on it before scanning the field once again.

Feeling it's finally time, I break the silence. "What's wrong?"

Diana doesn't stop searching the field. "There was no mistake, something was here".

I look around us, feeling a new sense of alarm. "Hey, hey, if that's the case shouldn't we inform the teachers and more importantly, get the hell out of here?"

My pleas fall on deaf ears, instead of responding to it, Diana takes out her wand and lifts it up. After a few incantations, soft, blue light begins to shine from the wand, forming a sphere of light that spreads far across our grassy surroundings.

An ethereal rabbit suddenly manifests itself not far from us, standing still close to us, peculiarly unaware and unalarmed by our close proximity. Before I can ask myself if I'm seeing things, the rabbit hops away from us and to my surprise, vanishes into thin air as it exits the sphere of the blue light.

This is a divination spell. The place that the light touches will reveal what happened in the past here to the caster. It doesn't go unnoticed to me how clear and crisp the images that the spell shows are, indicating just how powerful the spell and its caster is.

Another minute passes and an ethereal form of Diana comes into view beside us. The past Diana holds her wand up and begins casting a spell, presumably the fog wall spell.

After that, there's no more activity here. The ethereal Diana left with her broom and only a few forest creatures stroll about near the wall. Oh and a forest gnome does wander near the fog wall too, but he kept his hands to himself.

"There's nothing" Diana states.

Diana walks past me towards her broom.

"Should we check inside? Maybe there's something we can find there".

Diana stops and turns on her heels. "There could be, but if whatever disturbed the fog wall is still inside, then that means whoever that was won't be able to escape anytime soon. We better consult with the teachers instead and for safety measures ask for some goblins to keep watch here".

Diana takes her broom and mounts it. She notices I'm still lingering next to the barrier, silent as I'm lost in my thoughts. She says, "Is something troubling you?"

I shake my head and finally move to follow her. "Nothing, let's just get out of this creepy forest".