They sneaked into the building and quietly made their way up to the second floor.
The smell of burnt wood was still present in the corridor where books and pieces of paper were scattered around the floor, presumably left behind by the students who left in a panic.
The group of witches followed the smell and soon found the site of the accident: a classroom located at the end of the corridor.
After entering the room, Lily noticed that a corner of the room had been charred black and the entire wall had cracked open. The cracks even reached the floor. However, the fire did not seem to have spread very far. Lily could easily see the marks on the ground that were caused by the changes in the intensity of the flames. The pitch black wood near the source of the fire and the obviously less burnt wood at the outer rims formed a ripple-like pattern on the ground. She knew that this was not a fire that started naturally.
But what Lily was worried about the most were the cracks that snaked down the wall.
They looked almost as if they were the result of ax swings, and the openings seem entirely carbonized. Lily could even feel a faint residual warmth when she touched it with her fingers.
"This must be the place." Mystery Moon walked around the corner and said, "Summer, we'll leave the rest to you."
"Okay... But please stop me if someone were to come," Summer walked into the center of the room and summoned her magic power.
Thanks to them knowing the exact time of the explosion and the fact that only less than a day had passed since the accident, Summer soon found the time right before the accident. As her magic power gushed out, the damaged walls recovered, and order was restored back to the messy room. Many students appeared in the room, some were taking a nap on their desks while some were happily chatting together. There was no teacher on the teaching podium, meaning that this was probably during a lunch break.
Margie and Vanilla, who saw this sight for the first time ever, gasped and could not help exclaiming, but they quickly covered their mouth as were of disturbing Summer. They became quite flustered and almost tripped over as they tried to step back to dodge a "student" who walked over and passed through them like a ghost.
"Don't worry. These are just illusions," Evelyn explained enthusiastically. "Summer can create flashbacks of scenes that have already happened."
"What... a great ability!" Amy praised with admiration. She wasn't scared at all even though it was also her first time experiencing Summer's flashback creating ability.
"Haha... it's actually no big deal." Summer touched her head bashfully. "My ability is nothing compared to Sister Nightingale's."
"Nightingale? Do you mean the blonde sister who always follows His Majesty around and barely shows up?"
"Yeah, she's the most powerful witch in the Western Region, or maybe in the entire kingdom!"
"Awesome!" Amy said with sparkling eyes.
"Wait," Mystery Moon suddenly interrupted them. "Look!"
Lily frowned. "This is..."
"Bullying?" Evelyn whispered.
They saw five or six ten-year-old kids corner two girls, arguing fiercely. Each of the two girls reacted in completely different ways: one stood in the front, reaching out her hands to block the other kids away from the other girl, while the other was cowering behind her with a frightened look.
As the universal primary classes did not set a school age, the oldest student in the bully group looked like to be 15 or 16 years old, taller and stronger than the two girls combined. However, the short-haired girl was not intimidated by the other side's numbers or size and just stood on bravely.
The witches could conclude from lip-reading that they were quarreling about where they came from... insults such as "go back to the Eastern Region," and "dogs of the rebel king" were being thrown around.
Soon, they started to push at each other. The tallest kid struck first, intending to push the girl down to the ground, but as soon as he grabbed the girl's shoulder with his hands, his knee was kicked by the girl and he fell hard on the ground.
The situation in the classroom immediately turned awry.
The short-haired girl slipped out of the encirclement as agile as a slippery loach, and aimed another kick towards a fatty, drawing all the attention to herself.
At this moment, everyone stopped caring about the currently weeping girl. They all sprang together towards the short-haired girl, who, cunningly, used the other students in the classroom as cover to dodge the attacks. Her small figure helped her to accurately kick the pursuers' knees or ankles, making them hunch over in pain.
"What a ferocious little devil!" Mystery Moon was astonished.
"Come on. Knock them down!" Amy could not help clenching her fist as if she was actually at the scene.
"But... she doesn't have enough strength," Vanilla said with concern. "And continuing to attack the same places will do her no good, since it won't work a second time."
"Oh? How did you know that?" Mystery Moon looked at her in surprise.
"S-Sorry, I just used to..."
"The Church taught you that, right?" Evelyn comforted Vanilla. "That's okay. You've passed His Majesty's examination and proved that you're different from the evil Pure Witches."
Lily frowned without a word. She agreed with Vanilla. Although the students who had been kicked down looked flustered, they were able to struggle onto their feet after some time and continued to chase the girl. This time, they were more cautious and guarded their legs so that the girl had less of a chance to hit them.
Suddenly, the tallest kid lifted a chair and moved to strike her from behind with it while her attention was distracted by two other kids.
"Watch out!" Amy shouted.
But a warning shouted at someone who was in the illusion was meaningless, as the illusion only recorded what had already happened.
The chair leg hit the girl's head hard and knocked her down. However, at the moment she fell, the girl managed to roll out and away from the attacks from the two other opponents in front of her and squatted on the floor with her hands on her head and her teeth clenched tight.
The blood had stained her fingertips.
The blood slowly trickled down past her ear, and dyed her face red.
The tallest kid was a little stunned by the fact that the girl was able to take the strong blow. He hesitated for a while before tossing the chair away and then walked up to her.
At that moment when everyone thought that she was done for, her face suddenly twisted into an anguished look as she opened her mouth to shout out loudly. Although the witches could not hear her voice, they were able to gauge the pain she was in from her look, which she did not even display when her head was hit by the chair.
Then a bolt of lightning burst out from her fingertips and were soon followed by a second, a third... The lighting spread along the floor, leaving behind twisted orange-red trails, and as soon as it touched the window, it turned into a sudden burst of light.
In a split second, a blinding explosion occurred and a loud bang sounded. The window shattered, and a large hole was blown through the wall. Everyone panicked and ran away, leaving behind the short-haired girl shrouded in lightning.