The headquarters of "Sky-Bound Logistics" was exactly as Aiven remembered it: a sprawling, three-story building constructed from sun-bleached wood and iron, humming with the rhythmic scratching of quills and the heavy thud of official stamps. To Aiven, it had once been a sanctuary of stability. Now, as he stood before the heavy double doors, it felt like a cage he was about to unlock.
"So," Virelle said, her silver-lavender hair drifting lazily in the morning breeze. "This is where my Master spent his days counting crates? It's quite… brown."
"It's practical, Virelle," Aiven replied, adjusting the strap of his satchel. He looked at the bustling street—messengers darting past, laborers hauling carts. Already, he could see heads turning. "Listen, I need to go in and hand over my resignation. It'll be faster if you wait out here. I don't want to make a scene on my last day."
Virelle's violet eyes narrowed. She scanned the nearby crowd, spotting several laborers who had stopped their work entirely just to gape at her ethereal form.
"Absolutely not," she huffed, crossing her arms. "I have no desire to stay out here and be picked apart by the ogling eyes of random peasants. My brilliance is not a public exhibit for those who haven't even mastered basic mana circulation."
Aiven opened his mouth to argue that he was, by her definition, also a peasant, but he caught the look in a nearby messenger's eyes—a mix of awe and predatory curiosity. She was right. Leaving her alone was asking for a riot.
"Fine," Aiven sighed. "But please, just… be a 'friend.' No floating into the rafters, and no threatening to blow off anything"
"I shall be the very picture of 'friendship,'" Virelle promised, though the mischievous glint in her eyes suggested otherwise.
They stepped inside. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and ink. The moment they crossed the threshold, the hum of the office faltered.
"Aiven? Is that you?"
A group of clerks—colleagues Aiven had shared tea with for years—approached. A few of the women, specifically, leaned in with wide, curious eyes.
"You've been gone for days! We thought… well, after Hearthport, we were worried," a girl said, her hand reaching out to touch Aiven's arm. Her eyes then darted to Virelle, her expression shifting to one of intense scrutiny. "And who is… this?"
Aiven felt Virelle stiffen beside him. He quickly stepped into the gap. "This is Virelle. She's a friend. She's starting a new trade route and needed to consult some of our logistics data for her business."
"A business partner?" one of the men asked, looking Virelle up and down with a nervous grin. "Aiven, you've been holding out on us. Where did you find an elf this pretty in a logistics hub?"
"Aerilis is a big sky," Aiven said vaguely, moving past them.
Virelle followed, her boots clicking sharply on the floor. Internally, she was evaluating the office. She noted the way the female clerks leaned toward Aiven when they spoke, their voices dropping into a "familiar" register that made the mana in her orb pulse with a low, agitated hum.
So Master is popular among the commoners, she thought, her eyes narrowing as a female colleague shot Aiven a lingering, sympathetic look. Quite annoying. Don't they see he has a high-class mage now?
Aiven could practically feel the jealousy radiating off her in waves of cold air. He leaned in and whispered, "Virelle, stop. It's just workplace socializing. Don't do anything."
"I haven't done a thing," she whispered back, though her smile was tight. "I am merely observing the… biodiversity of your office."
Aiven led her to a small, quiet guest room lined with dusty maps. "Wait here. The room right next door is Mr. Hendel's office. I'll just go in, hand him the letter, and we'll be out in five minutes. Okay?"
Virelle settled onto a plush velvet chair, smoothing her skirt. "Fine. Five minutes, Master. If you take six, I might find a way to make these maps 'interactive.'"
Aiven didn't wait to find out what that meant. He stepped out, walked three paces to the heavy oak door marked Head of Logistics, knocked, and entered.
Inside the guest room, Virelle sat perfectly still for exactly sixty seconds. Then eighty. By the time the clock hit three minutes, her foot was tapping an impatient rhythm against the floor.
"Five minutes is an eternity," she grumbled.
She stood up. She could have stayed there, but the thought of those "familiar" girls potentially wandering into the boss's office to "check" on Aiven was too much. She raised her hand, and a shimmer of prismatic light washed over her.
In an instant, she became a ghost—a ripple in the air that no human eye could track. She could have used this invisibility earlier to avoid the "ogling peasants" on the street, but she hadn't mentioned it to Aiven. After all, if she were invisible, he wouldn't feel the need to keep her close, would he?
With a playful smirk, she phased through the wall like a shadow, drifting silently into the boss's office to see exactly how her Master handled his confrontation.
Virelle had barely stabilized her spectral form when a thunderous shout made her mana-form flicker in surprise.
"RESIGNING?! NOW?!"
A man in his mid-forties, with a face the color of an overripe beet and sweat already darkening the armpits of his expensive linen shirt, slammed his palms onto his desk. This, Virelle presumed, was Mr. Hendel.
"Do you have any idea what kind of chaos you've caused, Roan?" Hendel bellowed, his voice vibrating through the small room. "You disappeared for weeks! Abruptly using every scrap of your leave quota because of that 'incident', and I have to scramble to dump your routes onto people who actually show up! Now you walk back in here and expect to just quit without a handover? You think this is a playground?"
Aiven stood his ground, though he bowed his head slightly in a gesture of sincere contrition. "I understand your frustration, Mr. Hendel. I truly do, and I apologize deeply for the suddenness of it all. I'm not asking for favors. I'm happy to waive my salary for the period I was absent, even though it was designated as paid leave. And I've already put together a list of three people I've worked with in the past who are more than qualified to fill the role. I can facilitate the introductions today."
Hendel let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter. He leaned back, crossing his meaty arms over his chest. "You think some recommendations make up for a month of logistical headaches? No. I'm not having it. You want to leave? Fine. But you'll serve your full three-month notice period. Not a day less."
Invisible in the corner, Virelle felt the air in the room begin to hum. Her fingers twitched, a violent urge to simply blow the roof off this "brown" building and take Aiven away surging through her. She looked at Aiven's back; he looked so small compared to the shouting man, but his stance was unwavering. She forced herself to stay still. Observe, she told herself. See how Master fights.
"Sir, given my current circumstances, I cannot afford to wait three months," Aiven said, his voice quiet but firm. "I can offer two weeks. I can work double shifts to transition every single manifest to a new hire. But I'm a clerk, Mr. Hendel, not a manager. My duties are standardized; they shouldn't require a seasonal cycle to hand over."
Hendel squinted at him, sensing the change in Aiven's tone. The boy wasn't begging; he was negotiating. "Two weeks," Hendel muttered, his eyes narrowing. "Fine. Two weeks. But don't expect a copper for the days you were gone. In fact, I'm docking your final pay for the 'inconvenience' of your absence."
He stood up, leaning over the desk until he was inches from Aiven's face. "Take the deal, Roan. It's the best you'll get. Because let's be honest, you aren't cut out for anything else. You'll be out there for a month, realize that the 'real' world doesn't care about your little dreams, and you'll come crawling back here begging for your desk. You're a failure in the making."
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Virelle's invisibility shattered like glass. She didn't just appear; she erupted into existence. Prismatic light flared from her as she raised a hand, her violet eyes burning with a cold, jagged fury.
Whoosh—BOOM!
A concentrated bolt of mana, thin as a needle but dense as a falling star, shot from her fingertip. It whistled past Hendel's ear, missing his temple by a fraction of an inch, and slammed into the wood-paneled wall behind him. The sound was like a gunshot. A perfectly round, charred hole now pierced the wall—clean through the exterior—letting in a sharp rush of cold air as daylight poured in from the open sky beyond.
Aiven jumped back, his eyes wide with horror. "Virelle?!"
Hendel sat frozen. His mouth hung open, a single bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. He stared at the smoking hole behind him, then at the silver-haired girl who was now hovering a foot off the floor, her translucent sleeves fluttering as if caught in a gale.
"Master's resolution is not a topic for a creature like you to discuss," Virelle said, her voice like grinding ice. She didn't look playful. She looked like a goddess of retribution. "It is unforgivable. Truly, deeply unforgivable to belittle him."
She pointed a finger directly at Hendel's chest. "Kneel. Now. Apologize for your insolence, and you will sign the papers for his full pay—including the days he was absent. If you refuse, I will not just blow off the roof. I will delete this entire building from the map and fly away with my Master while you're still wondering where your floor went."
"Virelle! Stop it!" Aiven pleaded, stepping between her and the terrified boss. "You're making everything a thousand times worse! We can just leave—"
Virelle didn't move her gaze from Hendel. "Shut up, Master," she snapped, though her eyes softened for a fleeting second before sharpening again. "If I don't do this, you'll just keep letting people like this bully you. I am your protector, and I will not allow a man who smells of cheap ink and cowardice to call you a failure."
She leaned forward, the mana in her orb chiming a low, menacing warning. "Well, 'Head of Logistics'? Are you going to be reasonable, or am I going to be busy?"
Hendel's face had gone from beet-red to a sickly, translucent white. He looked at Aiven, his eyes darting between the tattered clerk and the hovering nightmare beside him. "Roan!" he croaked, his voice cracking. "Tell... tell your elf to stop! She's being outrageous! This is a workplace! You can't just—"
Virelle didn't wait for him to finish. She raised her other hand, palm open.
BOOM!
A second mana blast, three times the size of the first, tore through the office. It obliterated a heavy bookshelf, reducing a decade of logistics records to fine, grey ash and splinters. The shockwave rattled the windows and nearly threw Hendel from his chair.
"Call my Master's name again without his permission," Virelle said, her voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than the explosion, "and I will see if your head is more durable than that bookshelf. It won't be, by the way."
Hendel was trembling so violently his teeth were audibly chattering. He looked toward the door, his eyes wide with desperate hope that someone would come rushing in after hearing the destruction.
Virelle followed his gaze and let out a cold, mocking laugh. "Oh, searching for help? Don't bother. The moment I manifested, I coated this room in an anti-sound veil. To the world outside, we are simply having a quiet, professional chat. No one is coming, 'Sir.'"
Hendel looked at Aiven again, but this time, the arrogance was gone, replaced by raw, unadulterated terror. "Is... is the kneeling really necessary?" he asked, his voice a thin, wavering thread. "I'll give him the pay! No transition period! He can leave right now! Just... just let me stay in my chair!"
"Kneel," Virelle commanded, the prismatic light around her intensifying until it was blinding. "You should be grateful I'm not asking for something truly humiliating, like making you recite your cargo routes while wearing a chicken suit. Now. Down."
With a pathetic, stifled sob, Hendel slid out of his leather chair. His knees hit the floorboards with a dull thud. He bent his head, his hands flat on the floor, trembling. "I'm... I'm sorry. I apologize, Aiven... I mean, Mr. Roan. I shouldn't have said those things. Please... accept the pay. I'll sign the papers immediately."
Aiven stood frozen, watching his former superior—a man who had held the power of his livelihood for years—reduced to a quivering mess on the floor. It wasn't satisfying. It was just... exhausting. He looked at Virelle.
The murderous aura around her suddenly vanished. The jagged violet light in her eyes smoothed back into a soft, cheerful glow. She let out a bright, musical giggle and clapped her hands together.
"See, Master? He can be reasonable when he tries!"
She turned toward the exterior wall of the building, the one facing the infinite sky of Aerilis. "Well, since we're done here, I think it's time for a proper exit. Walking through the front door is so... clerk-like."
With a playful wink at Aiven, she raised her hand and gestured toward the wall.
CRASH!
A massive, jagged hole was torn through the wood and iron of the office, large enough for a carriage to pass through. Daylight flooded the room, along with the rush of the high-altitude wind.
"And a final piece of advice, 'Sir,'" Virelle said, glancing back at the kneeling Hendel. "If you try to sue him, report this, or even whisper his name to the authorities... I will come back. And I won't be aiming for the walls next time. You're smart, right? Make up a story about property damage. An accidental mana-lamp explosion. Or perhaps a very, very large pigeon."
Before Aiven could even process the threat, Virelle lunged forward. She grabbed him—one arm around his waist, the other gripping his shoulder—and pulled him into the air.
"Virelle—!"
"Hold on tight, Master! The view is much better from up here!"
She didn't wait for him to find his balance. With a surge of lavender energy, she shot out through the hole in the wall, soaring into the open sky. Aiven gasped as the ground dropped away, the logistics building shrinking beneath them until it was just another "brown box" in the distance.
Behind them, in a silent, sound-proofed office, Mr. Hendel remained on his knees, staring at the empty sky where his wall used to be.