When Cassian first came across the report, he let out an unfamiliar murmur of admiration.
Flame Storm.
A spell destructive in nature, yet containing a fatal phenomenon of mana backlash.
It was a problem so difficult that even he, called one of the strongest in the Empire, had only managed to improve its efficiency by a mere ten percent over several years.
That wall, which had seemed as though it would never be overcome.
A mere researcher had torn it down.
With nothing but a groundbreaking redefinition of its formula.
“Is he someone worth meeting in person?”
Cassian’s judgment was firm.
The answer was clearly yes.
But the researcher he met in person was disappointingly shabby.
“……Was he truly this insignificant?”
The amount of mana flowing through his body was on the level of an ordinary person.
Its density was also wretched.
He could not understand why his daughter, Ivelyn, would call such a man her teacher and follow him.
Just as he was about to dismiss him as a greenhorn who had luckily stumbled upon a single formula—
“You flatter me, Your Grace.”
The man called Rihan calmly held out his hand.
Cassian stared fixedly at Rihan’s hand.
What was it that he had seen?
He had seen Delmar, the chief mage of his house, collapse in vain.
With no more than a handful—
With that paltry mana, he had dismantled an entire Fourth Circle spell.
It was different from overwhelming force.
An eye that pierced through to the essence of magic.
Perfect control that precisely twisted the flow of mana.
Other mages of narrow insight would not have noticed.
But Cassian, who stood at the peak of the Sixth Circle, could not be deceived.
“………What did he do?”
Even if he was not quite on the level of Eleanor, a Tenth Circle mage.
Cassian had seen a fragment of the potential Rihan displayed.
That bizarre precision, as though he were looking down at the structure of magic from a dimension far higher than his own.
For an instant, Cassian’s heart began to thud heavily.
*****
Ten years ago.
Cassian had been quite different from how he was now.
More than his renown as a Sixth Circle mage counted among the top ten in the Empire,
his daughter Ivelyn’s laughter had been a far greater achievement to him.
He had been a man who worried more about what to have for dinner with his wife and daughter than the dignity of his house.
A somewhat immature, endlessly affectionate head of the family.
That had been Cassian at the time.
That peaceful daily life was shattered at the lips of an ominous fortune-teller who came to the family estate.
“Estal will be destroyed. The blazing flame will be consumed by the madness within itself, leaving not even ashes behind.”
What came from the mouth of the guest they had thought was there to offer blessings was a cruel curse.
Young Cassian, who had wanted to protect his family’s happiness, was flustered.
Then, in a surge of emotion, he drew up his mana.
“What are you saying! To utter such ill-omened words in the presence of my child!”
Cassian reached out to drive the fortune-teller away.
The mana of a Sixth Circle mage shook the space around them, forming a massive mass of flame.
But the man did not so much as blink.
He merely gazed into Cassian’s eyes as though pitying him, then lightly flicked his finger.
Fssst—
“……What.”
What that man had done lay far beyond the category of magic.
The spell Cassian had cast to protect his family had literally become nothing before the man’s eyes.
It had not been canceled out.
Nor had it been deflected.
As if magic was not allowed to exist there.
As if the laws of the world had been rewritten on the spot.
The mana evaporated into thin air.
A transcendent authority that even he, a Sixth Circle mage who had devoted his entire life to the world of magic, could not begin to understand.
“……How? How does magic disappear?”
He asked in a trembling voice, but only silence returned.
Only then did Cassian realize.
He was not some great being capable of protecting those he loved.
He was merely a single ant beneath the vast wheel called fate, one that could be crushed at any moment without it being strange.
From that day on, the fortune-teller’s prophecy gnawed at Cassian’s soul like poison.
His wish to remain a tender father transformed into the survival of his house.
To deny the prophecy, he reached for the deepest taboo of his family.
The perfect genius who founded Estal a thousand years ago.
The progenitor, Selene von Estal.
The secret treasure vault of the house, sealed by her own hand.
For the past ten years,
Cassian had given everything to open that door.
He undid the ancient seals one by one, but the final two seals would not open.
They could not be solved by any magical calculation currently in existence.
Before a geometric conundrum that mocked human intellect, he dreamed every night of his house’s destruction.
But today, at Rihan’s fingertips, he had seen a clue to that impossible answer.
That bizarre precision with which he subdued Delmar.
It resembled a fragment of one who manipulated the laws, the same kind of power that fortune-teller had shown ten years ago.
As long as the destruction of his house could be prevented, it did not matter who that man was.
“If it is you, Rihan……”
Even if he himself was devoured by madness at the end of it, Cassian had no intention of stopping.
*****
“This is strange.”
The Ivelyn von Estal I remember is the perfect villainess.
In the original work, she was the woman who hurled every curse and insult imaginable right up until the moment before her death.
And yet that same girl is trembling in front of me.
“Doesn’t she look way too pale?”
Still, she’s someone I can consider my disciple.
Seeing her back so dispirited, so unlike her usual self, bothers me for no reason.
[That little one seems to be carrying a heavier burden in her heart than expected. If you are her teacher, you ought to resolve it for her. That is what a teacher is meant to do.]
“Well, you’re right.”
For once, Eleanor said something correct.
She, too, had been the teacher who taught the progenitor of House Estal.
Perhaps she felt a strange sense of kinship with Ivelyn.
The problem is that I’m truly terrible at comforting people……
“Phew……”
Braving the awkwardness, I opened my mouth.
“Are you that afraid of your father?”
I asked in as light a tone as I could manage.
I hate it when the atmosphere gets needlessly heavy.
Ivelyn weakly shook her head.
“……I’m not afraid.”
She bit down hard on her lower lip.
“Right. Ivelyn isn’t the type to be scared by something like that.”
In the original work, there had never been a single mention of her being afraid of her father.
“Then what’s the problem? You’ve been dispirited ever since we arrived here.”
“……….”
After a brief silence, Ivelyn barely managed to speak.
“I’m the young lady of a ducal house. I know about things like the responsibilities that come with a family. I know how heavy they are, too.”
No, you knew?
If you knew, then why did you act like that in the novel?
Whether she knew my bewildered thoughts or not, Ivelyn continued.
“But Father…… right now, it doesn’t feel like responsibility. It feels like he’s possessed by something.”
She stopped speaking, then stared straight at me.
“Rihan. I don’t want to feel ashamed in front of you, of all people. You were the first person who made me see magic not just as a mass of mana, but as a world of its own.”
“……….”
She came at me out of nowhere.
Ivelyn’s voice slowly grew damp.
“The time I spent researching with you…… I liked it so much. It was so much fun.”
A sudden emotional confession?
The air turned awkward.
Even sharp-witted Eleanor seemed to have shut her mouth inside the doll for now.
“You’re an amazing person, so I’m sure you’ll climb even higher. That’s why…… I don’t want the darkness of my family to hold you back. You shouldn’t be here.”
In the end, tears welled up in Ivelyn’s eyes.
“So the reason she’s been dispirited was me.”
Thinking about it, she’s still just a kid.
“Ivelyn probably wasn’t a villainess from the very beginning, either.”
If she had grown up in a slightly more normal environment, she might have matured much more properly.
What she had truly needed in the novel may have been a little bit of simple attention.
In any case.
How are you supposed to survive graduate school if you’re this fragile?
The harsh memories of my past life briefly flashed through my mind.
But I at least know that this is a moment that calls for warm sympathy rather than cold advice.
No matter how bad I am at comforting people, I can read the room that much.
She tried to bring up the disgrace of her family, the thing she must have wanted most to hide.
“Our family, in truth, uses black—”
“Black magic, right? I know.”
Ivelyn’s words caught in her throat.
She looked at me with wide eyes.
“H-how……?”
“There’s nothing I don’t know. Who do you think I am? I’m your teacher.”
I smiled slyly and added,
“I knew everything before I came here, so don’t worry about it. Whether you use black magic or whatever your family is doing, to me, Ivelyn von Estal is just my disciple. I’m not especially interested in anything else.”
I lightly placed my hand on top of her head as she stood there blankly.
Unlike the cold air of the corridor,
the warmth of her soft hair traveled into my palm.
It’s a little cringe-worthy, sure.
But this is a romance-fantasy world, isn’t it?
Then shouldn’t I say something fitting for a romance fantasy?
“So don’t cry. You’ll ruin your pretty face.”
“………….”
Was that one sentence what broke the final dam?
Ivelyn grabbed my sleeve and began crying like mad.
“I’m scared…… Rihan. I’m so scared of what Father might do to you. Please run away……”
“It’s okay. I don’t die that easily.”
After all, the backing watching over me is a Tenth Circle mage.
Judging from the way Eleanor is boasting confidently inside the doll, she’ll probably do something about it.
You could call her a kind of joker card.
I soothed her while patting her on the back.
The grip of her hand, clutching tightly at my collar, grew stronger.
As I comforted her and patted her back,
Eleanor’s voice sounded in my mind.
[Rihan. The formula of placing a hand upon the head has not changed from a thousand years ago to now. Hmm. You look rather like a teacher.]