Lumina was climbing the narrow path on the northern mountain.
Her hand brushed back her silk-like hair as it always did, but beneath that familiar gesture, meticulous calculations of profit and loss were rapidly crossing her mind as she sought a way through the current situation.
Her purpose in climbing this secluded forest path was singular: to make an investment in Senior Celestia under the pretext of an apology.
Even by her own assessment, taking out her anger on Senior Celestia simply because Senior Lowell had stubbornly rejected her had been the worst possible move—not only in terms of the dignity expected of the head of a vast merchant association spanning the continent, but also in terms of efficiency.
Senior Lowell was not the simple wastrel Lumina had initially expected, someone who could be swayed by beauty or the backing of money.
On the contrary, he was like a solid fortress wall, unmoved by any temptation.
“Lowell von Adrian... He was a far more troublesome opponent than I thought.”
Senior Lowell was far too great a variable to be used through simple emotion.
Lumina coolly acknowledged the fact that he was a person far more valuable, and far more difficult to handle, than she had imagined.
If she wanted to bring such a person over to her side, carrying the label of a rude first-year as she did now was an obvious disadvantage.
Her strategy needed to be revised.
Rather than maintaining a hostile relationship like this, it would be far more productive to immediately acknowledge her mistake and build the image of a wise, exemplary junior who knew how to clean up after herself—whether to gain Senior Lowell’s recognition or to establish her footing within the academy.
Showing that she had formed an amicable relationship with Senior Celestia was also one of the essential steps in approaching the solid fortress wall that was Senior Lowell.
“I’ll lower my head just enough and gain her trust.”
That was the conclusion reached by Lumina Felicium, who had lived her life amid meticulous calculations.
Lumina climbed the forest path while simulating in her mind the perfect degree of apology and the value of the information she could obtain afterward.
However, the farther she ascended the walking trail, the more cracks began to form in Lumina’s calculating calm.
She, too, was the heir who would one day lead one of the continent’s great merchant associations, as well as a practitioner with a high-level sensitivity to mana.
The faint tremors mixed into the air, and the urgent, ear-splitting screams of the spirits, sharply grated against Lumina’s nerves.
Ordinary students would neither see nor hear them, but the spirits that existed everywhere in the academy always hovered around Celestia, protecting her.
Now, as if being chased by something, they were convulsing and shrieking into Lumina’s ears.
It was a clear sign that Celestia was nearby, and at the same time, a warning that an unbearable disaster had arrived.
It was at that very moment, just as Lumina stopped in doubt.
Screeeech—!
The ordinary air twisted grotesquely, as though transparent glass were shattering in midair.
Before Lumina could even react, a blindingly powerful white flash swallowed the entire forest.
A destructive wave, as if space itself had been erased and reassembled, swept over Lumina’s entire body, and she was pushed backward before she could even scream.
“......!”
Just as Lumina staggered and raised her arm to shield her face, Celestia’s form appeared from within the tomb of light, as if dropped there by some lie.
Having been forcibly torn through the wall of dimensions and flung out, she looked perilously fragile, as though she might shatter at any moment.
Then, piercing through the afterglow of the flash, an enormous silver-gray shadow surged up like a storm.
Kwaaang—!
What brushed past Lumina’s shoulder was Silber, the massive high-ranking wolf spirit, as large as a house.
With his mane bristling so fiercely that none of his usual aloof grace remained, he stared at Celestia once, his eyes filled with shock and rage.
Within those eyes lay agonizing concern for his master and desperate urgency.
Without delaying even a single instant, Silber began to race madly toward the mountain where the Bartholomew training grounds were located.
Wherever the enormous spirit beast set foot, the earth caved in and trees snapped apart.
His fierce momentum was like a great storm sweeping through the forest.
With vacant eyes, Lumina looked back and forth between Silber’s retreating back and Celestia, who remained there, pale and gasping for breath.
The efficient lines of apology and political calculations that had filled her mind until moments ago evaporated without a trace before this unreal and overwhelming sight.
Lumina’s instincts whispered to her that the place she had stepped into was not merely a forest where her senior happened to be, but the scene where some vast destiny had been twisted.
“What... in the world just happened? And what was that...?”
Lumina barely steadied her trembling legs and approached Celestia, who was panting for breath.
The unreal flash she had just witnessed and the charge of that enormous spirit beast were far beyond all the common sense Lumina had built up over her life.
The meticulous calculations that had filled her head were no longer even in consideration.
“Senior Celestia...! Please come to your senses! What in the world happened? Are you all right?!”
Lumina urgently reached out to grab her shoulder.
At that instant, Celestia’s head, damp with cold sweat, turned toward Lumina with a slowness that was almost grotesque.
There was no focus in her eyes.
They were filled only with emptiness, as though a deep abyss had been transferred into them.
But the moment her gaze met Lumina’s, an unpleasant violet light flashed within those hollow eyes.
“......Do not interfere.”
Celestia’s low whisper was so cold that none of her usual kindness could be found in it.
As soon as those words ended, her shadow rippled abnormally, and dozens of black chains shot through the air toward Lumina like snakes.
[ Chains of the Evil God ]
“Aah...!”
At the instinctive sense of danger, Lumina threw herself backward and squeezed out her mana.
[ Intermediate-Tier Magic: Wind Surge ]
A powerful whirlwind surged around Lumina, forcibly twisting the paths of the chains flying toward her.
Clang!
With a sharp metallic sound, the chains gouged into the ground, and amid the cloud of dust thrown up by the impact, Lumina desperately widened the distance.
Gasping roughly, Lumina lifted her head—and could only freeze.
Wrapped in black mana that rose like fog, Celestia’s face was cast in deep shadow.
The wavering violet light in her eyes pierced through Lumina like that of a beast hunting its prey, and the fighting spirit she emitted burned so viciously it seemed ready to drain the life from the forest.
There was no trace of the second-year exemplar who had always smiled with grace and kindness.
What stood before her was a living calamity itself, longing only for destruction.
Feeling chills run down her spine, Lumina clenched the dagger in her pocket tightly.
The path she had taken to make an investment under the pretext of an apology had now become a battlefield of survival where her life was at stake.
“Senior, are you in your right mind?!”
With trembling fingertips, Lumina aligned her mana and glared fiercely at the black chains surging toward her once again.
But before Lumina could properly begin chanting her spell, Celestia’s lips moved ever so slightly.
The gesture of Celestia’s hand that followed was not the careful, considerate motion she usually used out of concern that her opponent might be hurt.
It was a cold and arrogant gesture, as though she were brushing away an annoying insect.
[ High-Tier Magic: Ground Zero ]
In that instant, all of Lumina’s senses stopped.
Sound, wind, even the screams of the spirits seemed to evaporate all at once, and a terrible silence descended over the forest.
Then, in the next fleeting moment, a blinding violet wave swept horizontally outward with Celestia at its center.
“......!”
She could not even scream.
The intermediate-tier magic Lumina had deployed, Wind Surge, was torn apart as helplessly as a scrap of paper, and the ancient trees that had towered toward the sky evaporated into dust.
Immediately afterward, an overwhelming pressure of unimaginable mass crushed Lumina’s entire body.
Crunch!
The sound of her shoulder and ribs screaming as they were crushed rang against her eardrums.
The ground beneath Lumina could not withstand the enormous force and caved in, collapsing into a deep depression.
Lumina’s entire body, horribly bent, was driven down into the deep underground darkness along with the collapsing earth.
“Aaaagh!!”
The acrid taste of blood spread through her mouth.
In agony so severe her crushed lungs could barely draw breath, Lumina desperately opened her eyes.
Her vision was blurred and stained red, and all around her were piles of collapsed earth and debris.
Amid the sensation of being pushed to the threshold of death, the last thing Lumina saw was Celestia’s back as she walked leisurely past the hole into which Lumina had been buried.
Celestia moved toward only one place, as if she had no interest whatsoever in what she had just done.
The destination of her steps was the academy, where thousands of students were spending their peaceful daily lives.
Lumina’s vision went black.
In the silent underground darkness that followed, only the violet light of Celestia’s eyes, growing farther away as she headed toward the academy, remained like an afterimage.