“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“Shh.”
—
Suppression Army Fortress.
When Erica raised her voice from the guard tower, Schlus put a finger to his lips.
Erica gaped in disbelief.
Schlus’s ridiculous proposal to reclaim the 4th Castle using magic was absurd.
“What are you thinking? That won’t work! The opponent is not some cowardly student. They’re soldiers in the middle of a war! Such a pathetic scheme won’t fool them.”
“Erica, the more soldiers are in the midst of war, the more terrified they become. Each command holds the life of their subordinates.”
“What do you mean······?”
“The important thing isn’t whether the opponent uses spells or engages in psychological warfare. Just showing the capability to use them is enough. Unless they’re in a dire situation, the opponent will have to play it safe and be overly cautious. That’s what we’ll be exploiting.”
“······.”
It was vague, yet somewhat clear.
Seeing Schlus’s confident face slightly calmed Erica.
After all, everything typically went according to Schlus’s plans…
Schlus always fought winning battles.
She believed this would be no exception.
“So? Why are you telling me this?”
Erica looked around briefly.
Only Schlus and she were atop the high watchtower.
There had to be a reason for arranging such a secluded place, even sending down the guard.
“Just… I felt there hasn’t been much chance for us to talk openly, just the two of us.”
“What the······!”
What is that supposed to mean?
Stunned, Erica took a step back—
“Whoa?!”
“Ugh!”
Almost stumbling down, Schlus quickly grabbed her arm to pull her back.
With shaking legs, she couldn’t stand and knelt, prompting Schlus to extend his hand.
“It was a joke. Had I known you’d react so strongly, I wouldn’t have said it.”
“Who makes jokes so seriously······.”
Erica, now standing using his hand, pouted in annoyance.
Something about this situation rubbed her the wrong way.
Shouldn’t she feel anxious and restless to be alone with Schlus?
Strangely, she felt a sense of calm.
“I called you because I have a request.”
“A request?”
“Yeah. That spell I just mentioned. I want you to draw it for me.”
“Eh? Why?”
“Among everyone I’ve seen, I’ve never found someone who can draw spells faster and more efficiently than you. Aside from Professor Ludwig, you might be the best in the Imperial University when it comes to magic spells.”
“Hmph. Even if the top student of Elemental Magic says so, it’s not very convincing.”
“Question 10 on the midterm exam? I just copied Iris’s answer. I’m sure Iris copied yours.”
“What? There’s no way Iris would do that—”
“It was a test where anything goes. Iris probably tricked you without a second thought.”
“······.”
That sounded plausible.
Iris was definitely kind-hearted but would never go easy on competition.
In a midterm where cheating was allowed, it made sense for Iris to copy her answers.
So, did that mean she was the only one who solved Question 10?
Erica felt bewildered.
“I have no one else to entrust this to.”
“Fine, I get that, but the problem is that my mana is woefully insufficient. For that scale, I’d have to pour everything into it, focusing on constructing the spell for a week… and what if the enemy catches on?”
“Mana, huh? I can solve that.”
“What do you mean by that?”
She was estimating her necessary mana to be at 200,000.
How on earth could he hope to input that all at once?
“First, draw the outline of the spell. We need to inject mana.”
“Tsk, fine. I’ll do it.”
“I’ll infuse only half of it first. The other half I’ll add tomorrow.”
Erica hesitantly focused on her mana.
Drawing upon the mana high above, in the air surrounding the 4th Castle.
In an instant, the container to hold that mana was completed.
“Don’t be ridiculous! Call Aintz or Iris to help infuse mana. Then it’ll be possible within three days······ huh?”
As Erica was speaking bluntly, her eyes widened.
An unbelievable phenomenon was occurring.
Waves of mana, immeasurable in height, violently surged and filled the container.
The mana swelled beyond 30,000, then 50,000, like a snowball—
“This is insane.”
It reached 100,000.
Dumbfounded, Erica could only stare in utter amazement.
Schlus displayed no sign of exhaustion from mana depletion; he stood there calmly.
No way.
The amount of mana he measured at the beginning of the semester was truly an error.
She’d heard whispers that Schlus’s mana capacity was extraordinary, but this was the first time she was witnessing it quantified.
“I’m going to inject the rest now.”
“What? You said you’d do that tomorrow—”
“The date just changed.”
“Huh?”
It was true.
Mana was once again surging into the spell.
She was left utterly speechless.
In the blink of an eye, the mana amount surpassed 150,000 and soon reached 200,000.
“Wow······.”
Turning to look, Schlus still stood there, as composed as ever.
Now, this was beyond the astonishing level—it was awe-inspiring.
Looking at Schlus’s profile, only one thought crossed Erica’s mind.
That guy’s tough.
Had he hidden that amount of mana until he became an adult?
As a commoner, how many times must he have wanted to flaunt that immense mana?
Yet Schlus had concealed it until his enrollment in the Imperial University.
He must have faced discrimination and persecution that she could hardly imagine…
No, that couldn’t be it.
Schlus must have made a contract with a demon to gain such immense power.
Yeah. That must be it.
“Ugh······.”
Erica shook her head, pushing those thoughts away.
This was no spell she could handle casually.
A single mistake could lead to the spell being undone, and a massive casualty could ensue.
Now that she was entrusted with this extraordinary amount of mana, she had to approach the spell’s composition with the seriousness it deserved.
With remote spell manipulation like this, even the tiniest mistake could spiral into a major disaster, so she had to be especially careful.
Many moments passed as she refined the spell’s details and focused on its security.
Finally, the spell’s security system was complete.
Given the scale of the spell, merely ensuring it wasn’t undone was no easy feat.
Now she could slowly complete the rest and prepare the operating unit in accordance with the spell’s execution sign.
Finally, Erica wiped off the cold sweat from her forehead and turned around.
“Uh?”
“······?”
There stood Schlus, still in the same posture, upright and organized.
For a moment, Erica doubted her sense of time.
Surely, it had been well over three hours by now…?
“What’s going on? Why are you still here?”
“Guarding.”
“Huh?”
“Would I leave a defenseless magician alone while they’re working on a spell?”
“······.”
Then, sending just any soldier to replace him would have sufficed.
Erica hung her head, not able to say anything.
Just as she was silently dejected, Schlus, glancing at her, began to move toward the ladder.
“Shall I go down first, or do you want to go first—”
“Schlus Hainkel.”
“······.”
Erica impulsively grabbed Schlus’s wrist.
As his head turned and their empty gazes met, Erica felt her breath catch.
Why did I grab him?
“What is it?”
“W-well. Let’s talk. Like you said, we haven’t really had the chance to talk openly, just the two of us.”
“Is this a joke too?”
“No······ Unfortunately.”
She wished it were just a joke.
It was a problem that it were serious.
For some reason, she felt like if she let Schlus go from here, she would regret it.
Her instinct screamed that she must extend this painfully awkward and suffocating moment.
“We’re too far apart to have a heart-to-heart, right now.”
“Uh······.”
That was true.
She detested Schlus too much.
Her suspicions towards him built up until she couldn’t help but dislike him.
But what could she talk about now that would make her trust him?
Trusting someone wasn’t the same as believing in them.
As a magician, she could believe in Schlus, but as a person, she could never trust him.
“Then, I’ll give you an opportunity. I’ll give you five minutes, and you can ask me anything freely. If it’s a question I find troublesome, I’ll let it slide, but I swear I won’t lie.”
“R-really? For real?”
“Five minutes. It starts now.”
Erica’s mind spun in chaos.
She had many questions.
So many things she wanted to ask.
But she hesitated, wondering if it would be alright to ask them.
But when would she ever get another chance like this?
There might not be a second opportunity to stand side by side and talk to Schlus like this.
She absolutely couldn’t let it go to waste.
“My mom! What’s your relationship with my mom?”
“······.”
Oh crap.
Her first question was this.
She just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
Sure enough, a smirk danced on Schlus’s lips, as if intrigued by her question.
“A trusted ally. No, no, it’s more accurate to say a reliable but not fully trusted ally.”
“······?”
“Don’t ask for clarifications. Next question.”
She wanted to ask what he meant by that, but he quickly cut her off.
So it wasn’t that he was romantically involved with her mom?
But what did it mean to be a trusted but not fully trusted ally?
Now that she’d heard his answer, the confusion just compounded.
But there wasn’t time to ponder that.
She needed to think of her next question quickly.
No, even thinking about it was a luxury.
Without hesitation, Erica voiced a long-held doubt.
“Schlus, did you make a contract with a demon?”
“What?”
“I mean, did you make a contract with a demon to gain great power!”
She let it slip.
Peeking through her half-closed eyes, she saw Schlus’s expression contorting.
Was that the right answer?
No, it was different from when he was hit with a truth.
This wasn’t an uncomfortable grimace; it was more like…
Yeah. It was closer to a look of disbelief.
“Haha······.”
“Huh?”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“······?”
Schlus doubled over, groaning, bursting into a fit of laughter unexpectedly.
This was the first time she’d seen him laugh like this.
It wasn’t a forced chuckle or mocking laugh; he was genuinely enjoying himself, laughing so hard.
Was her story that funny?
Well, maybe that was part of it…
But more than that, the distance between them had definitely lessened.
“Hah······. I’m sorry. That was just too funny. How on earth did you come to that conclusion?”
“Well, a commoner like me suddenly became super strong after entering the Imperial University, and then started spitting blood… I thought maybe I traded my lifespan for power or something.”
“Erica, you’re making a grave mistake.”
“What’s that? I thought it was a pretty rational deduction?”
“There are no such things as demons in this world. They only exist in fairy tales.”
“No way.”
He couldn’t be serious.
The shock hit Erica like a hard slap to the back of her head.
When she thought about it, apart from those fairy tales or anecdotes she had read as a child, she had never encountered a demon in real life.
So why had she believed so firmly that demons existed without a doubt?
Was it perhaps because her mother had shared a serious story about them when she was young?
“Ah.”
Suddenly embarrassed, Erica’s face flushed a deep red.
She could have figured out by just thinking a little rationally that demons don’t exist.
Yet she had blindly believed it until now.
This was mostly her mother’s fault.
No, maybe it wasn’t.
Her mother probably never imagined her daughter would still take that seriously until she grew up.
Erica felt foolish and embarrassed thinking about it, wanting to hide in a mouse hole.
But here, atop this open watchtower, there wasn’t anywhere to hide.
When she came to her senses, Erica found herself squatting down, her back turned to Schlus.
“A contract with a demon. That’s a pretty plausible conclusion… if it were the reasoning of an 8-year-old child.”
“Ugh! I get it! I misunderstood and jumped to conclusions······.”
“The secret of my power… If I say I suddenly became strong one day, you wouldn’t believe it. So let me put it this way. One day, I became a different person. You could say I was reborn… Anyway, after that day, everything changed. Does that answer your question?”
“······.”
He had said he wouldn’t lie.
It was a strange tale.
Becoming a different person.
Being reborn.
Was that just a metaphor indicating he had some massive shock and gained enlightenment?
It was just as difficult to understand as always.
“The time is up. You used the full five minutes asking only two questions. That’s unfortunate, Erica.”
“Schlus······.”
“Yeah?”
“Sorry. I think I misjudged you. A lot.”
With her knees hugged tight, Erica thought over her cold thoughts.
While she had come to resent Schlus for accumulating doubts about him, the truth was the opposite.
She had always disliked Schlus from the start.
She had despised him simply for pushing her aside despite being a commoner, entering as the top student.
All her misunderstanding—about him making a deal with demons or flirting with her mom and Julia—were just fabrications she built up to justify her disdain.
To bolster her hatred for him, her subconscious had kept clinging to these flimsy misunderstandings that could easily have been cleared up with just a little thought.
“I was just… hating you for no reason. I guess I ended up being just as bad as those noble jerks who pushed you aside. No, it’s worse. At least they recognized you eventually; I hated you until this very moment.”
This was the worst.
She was worse than those despicable noblemen.
How could she face Schlus again after this?
Erica felt she had no right to even stand alongside him or be his comrade.
“I’m······ such an idiot······.”
“Did you just now figure that out, you fool?”
“Huh?”
“You actually caught on quicker than I expected. I thought it would take you at least two more years.”
“W-what?”
“But for an idiot, you’ve done pretty well. A fool who knows they’re a fool isn’t a bad fool.”
“······.”
That was certainly true.
Hearing it from Schlus didn’t make her feel bad; instead, it evoked a smile from her.
Looking up, she found Schlus reaching out his hand again.
As if he’d do it over and over, helping her up for the umpteenth time.
With that unwavering gaze, he stretched out his arm before her.
“I’ll accept your apology. And right now, I need the help of an idiot, so will you get up?”
“Sure······. Gladly.”
No longer someone she disliked.
The only guy who called her an idiot.
The one who broke her shell and pulled her out of her arrogant world.
She grasped his hand and stood up.
It was an exceptionally beautiful starry night.
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