Chapter 91: Each One’s Circumstances (1)
“Right, it’s a heart-wrenching thing for us. But that doesn’t an we can forget it, does it? I force myself to drink it just to rember Master’s face. When I see this tea, I think of Master.”
It was the tea drunk on the day Arkis Air died.
The very tea Tyrant secretly laced with dicine, and that Etar delivered to Arkis Air at the top.
“…….”
However, Etar’s expression grew gloomy, thinking that he himself bore a large share of responsibility for his master’s death.
“Co on, let’s drink.”
Tresha, who had finished brewing all the tea, handed Etar a cup and sat facing him.
Tresha sipped the tea leisurely, as if it truly ant nothing to him.
“……I wish I didn’t have emotions like you. Then I wouldn’t feel this kind of guilt.”
“What are you talking about. I’m human too, so why wouldn’t I have emotions? I just don’t show them.”
“Anyway.”
Just like that, the two headmasters began drinking their tea.
“By the way, what’s the reason you ca all this way? Because of security, we don’t even contact each other, and you’ve never co to visit before.”
Only then did Tresha ask about the main point.
Etar finally told Tresha about Artel, who was at his branch school.
“What? No, if sothing that serious happened, why didn’t you tell right away? Why are you only telling now!”
Seeing Tresha, who rarely showed his emotions, get this worked up.
It was quite a good sign.
“Well, I wasn’t sure myself. But this ti I beca certain, so I ca to see you.”
“No, no. Wait. This isn’t sothing for just us to talk about, is it? We need to call Alfric too. It’s an issue that concerns the survival of the Sculptor, and furthermore the survival of the entire Magical Society.”
Originally, Etar had planned to stop by the Ramus Branch School and use the waypoint there to go to the Rus Branch School.
He had said he disliked Rus Alfric because he found him frustrating, but what they were discussing now was, as Tresha said, a matter concerning the future of the Sculptor and the Magical Society.
Rus Alfric was also a mber of the sa Sculptor, so they couldn’t talk about it without him.
Fortunately, since Tresha said he would call Alfric over here, Etar thought it was a relief that his burden was lightened.
In a corner of the Ramus Branch School’s headmaster’s office, three fireplaces stood side by side, just like the ones in Etar’s office.
Tresha stood in front of the fireplace that held an unlit bulb and suddenly began manifesting magic.
As if he had wrapped solid rock around his fist, one of his hands beca a mass of stone.
Bang! Bang!
“Hey! Alfric! I know you’re all there! Hurry and co over here! I’ll open the way!”
He even shouted while pounding the waypoint leading to the Rus Branch School with his stone-turned hand.
“Alfric! Hurry up and co!”
When he shouted at the top of his lungs, the stones of the stone fireplace clumped together and opened a portal.
Alfric had responded.
“What a fellow completely devoid of refinent. You were scolded by Master in the past to be more composed, so how is it that you’re exactly the sa now, tsk tsk.”
A scolding voice ca from within the portal, and finally one foot appeared outside it.
Pure white shoes.
Soon, the full figure of Rus Alfric was revealed.
A pure white robe whose long sleeves stretched all the way down to the floor and dragged along it, reminiscent of the Arkis Air from his lifeti.
Long white hair.
Even white pupils.
Just by appearance alone, it was enough to make one mistake him for Arkis Air having co back to life.
“……What? Why do you look like that?”
With Rus Alfric’s appearance, both Etar and Tresha were utterly shocked.
The last ti they had seen him was a little over fifty years ago.
But back then, his hair was clearly short, and he didn’t wear a robe with such long sleeves.
When he had lived as Arkis Air’s disciple, he often looked unfavorably on Arkis Air’s attire, saying, “Doesn’t Master find that uncomfortable? I could never wear that……. The sleeves are so long they drag on the floor. That’s why Master walks around with his arms crossed every day.”
And yet, that very man—
Now had an unmistakable appearance of Arkis Air.
“There are many ways to honor Master. I just chose my own way—do you have a problem with that?”
Alfric replied nonchalantly and ca over to sit beside Etar.
“What about my tea?”
“……Get it yourself and drink it.”
Tresha and Alfric began bickering the mont they t.
“You two are still like that? Let’s co to our senses now. We’re not Master’s disciples anymore in this era—we’re each headmasters of branch schools and heads of representative elental families. Let’s behave with so decorum.”
Etar scolded the two of them like a teacher.
“You’re right. Tis have changed like that. But strangely enough, whenever the three of us gather like this, I feel like I’ve gone back to when we were Master’s disciples.”
Tresha replied.
As he spoke, he freshly poured tea for Alfric.
“I feel the sa way. It feels like returning to the world of childhood. Back when we were learning magic, when we were pure.”
This ti, it was Alfric’s reply.
He too had secretly been looking forward to days when the three of them would gather like this.
Where they were sitting was a round table.
Out of six seats, three were filled.
Tresha had deliberately made it six seats because he longed for a day when all six disciples would gather together, sit down, and perhaps even share a al in honor of their master.
But reality was…….
The three gathered there knew well that such a day could never co.
“Bastards.”
Tresha said, looking at the three empty seats.
“Well, it’s sothing to say only now, but when Arkis-nim first said he was going to take that Draco Tyrant bastard as a disciple, I opposed it vehently, foam at the mouth and all.”
Alfric chid in.
“Why?”
“Why else? Those of the Darkness Elent all have filthy intentions inside. A dog doesn’t change its habits. Master was too good-natured for his own good. In the end, what happened? He was betrayed.”
He was killed by the hand of Tyrant, whom Alfric had opposed with all his might.
That was an undeniable fact.
“I see……. I thought you simply hated Tyrant because he was an elentalist with a disposition completely opposite to yours.”
Etar asked casually.
“That’s true too. It’s true that we Light Elentalists dislike Darkness Elentalists because our dispositions are opposites. But Darkness Elentalists basically live with filthy intentions. That’s just the decisive reason.”
“Hey, Etar. You fought like crazy with Livia too, didn’t you? Didn’t you ever get slapped by Livia?”
Tresha suddenly brought up an old story.
“…….”
“Etar hurriedly shut his mouth.”
“Did that really happen?”
Alfric showed interest.
Etar let out an occasional, “Ahem……,” as a aningless cough.
The Water Elentalist, Lamic Livia.
Ed Etar, a Fire Elentalist, was a mage of a completely opposite disposition, and ever since their days as disciples, their relationship had not been very good.
Moreover, Livia was a female mage, and from the very beginning, there had been friction between her and Etar.
With different dispositions and even different genders, the two were truly discordant.
“Yeah, I got smacked really refreshingly with a splash of water. Co to think of it, after you got hit like that, didn’t your fire seem to weaken a bit? That’s not just your imagination, right?”
“And what about you? Didn’t you get spit on by Kabir? You two fought, Kabir got heated, and she blew her spit onto your forehead with wind.”
Tresha also had an anecdote similar to Etar’s.
Mirne Kabir.
The current headmaster of the Mirne Branch School.
She too was an elentalist of a disposition completely opposite to Tresha, an Earth Elentalist.
Kabir was also a female mage, and just like Livia and Etar, there was discord.
“Why is that story coming up now!”
Tresha snapped.
“You’re the one who brought it up first. When you hit soone, you should also keep in mind that you might get hit back.”
“You’re really having a field day…….”
Alfric shook his head as if exasperated and stepped in to diate.
“We didn’t gather here to talk about this kind of trivial nonsense, did we?”
“…….”
Only then did the atmosphere return to normal.
Then Etar told them everything so far: the talent Etar, the student at his branch school, had shown since Class 0; the fact that Tyrant, one of the two family heads who had lost their mories, had taken an interest in him; and, on top of that, the sacrifices of the surviving mbers of the Emt Family made to protect him.
“……The mbers of the Emt Family we worked so hard to save…….”
Alfric mourned those who had been regrettably sacrificed.
“Then how many of the Emt Family are left now?”
“Three.”
“It was already the elental family with the fewest mbers…… and now only three remain.”
“If there had been just one more…….”
Tresha and Alfric both spoke, thinking of the all-out war that was to co.
The Magic Academy main campus, the Royal Guard, the Draco Family, the Lamic Family, the Mirne Family.
That made four places they would have to face at once.
Even excluding the Nohill Family and the House Mihael, the constituent families cooperating with the Draco Family, it was still four.
Each would require one Flewd.
Only then could they neutralize elental matchups and secure even a small chance of victory.
But they were short by exactly one.
With the situation like this, Etar keenly felt the emptiness left by the four who had been sacrificed.
“By the way, you still haven’t found the whereabouts of that girl?”
Alfric asked Etar.
“……I can’t find even a trace. At this point, it’s probably right to assu she’s already been killed by the Royal Guard.”
“Who are you talking about?”
When Tresha, who didn’t know the situation, asked, Alfric answered.
“On the day the Emt Family was attacked 250 years ago, I was the first to step in, rember? Back then, I saved one young girl. She was a mber of the Emt Family.”
With their forces being so lacking, they were only now trying to find the whereabouts of the girl he had saved back then.
“I just can’t rember her na. I think it was three syllables.”
Because the circumstances had been so unclear, even Alfric himself, the one who had saved her, couldn’t properly rember her na.
“It was probably Delsere.”
“How do you know? You’ve never even seen that girl?”
Etar played a mob containing the voice of Emt Laren, who had been sacrificed to block the Royal Guard’s entry into the branch school.
It was the recording from the day she went to her death, earnestly asking them to be sure to find her younger sibling.
“……Delsere. Now that I think about it, that does seem to be the right na.”
The three family heads took a mont of silence to honor the sacrifices.
“For now, I ca to find you because of the all-out war that’s coming. I wanted to make a final check of how much strength each of you has.”
After finishing the mont of silence, Etar said gravely.
Then, together with the two of them, he continued a serious eting.
The next day, at around 10:20 a.m. in the 5th Class.
Professor Draco Deven saw the warning ssage that had appeared on his mob and hurried toward the problematic location.
The problematic location was the auditorium of the 5th Class.
But in the auditorium he arrived at, there stood an altar that should only have been at the main campus.
The mont he discovered the altar, he hurriedly tried to get rid of it with a frightened expression.
But—
Grrrrrr—!
A monster burst out of the altar.
No, at first it was just one, but as if it were self-dividing, their numbers increased exponentially.
Giant wolves with black fur and black eyes.
The wolves smacked their lips as they looked at Deven.
“Why is an 8th-grade altar here…….”
Bang—!
At that mont, the doors of the auditorium closed, and a barrier spell was cast so that no one could get out.
It was magic of the Darkness Elent.
‘Just who is it?’
Deven couldn’t help but panic.
A barrier spell so powerful that even he, a professor, couldn’t escape.
As far as he knew, there was only one person in this branch school capable of using such magic.
‘Could it be the vice headmaster……?’
But it was already too late.
The pack of black wolves that had burst out of the altar tore Deven’s body apart like prey.
“Kkeuaaaak—!”
In the auditorium, after his scream faded, only black wolves and red blood remained.
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