I’ve been watching Cory carefully these days.
I went over to the green class often, and went over to Cory’s afternoon class, magic, often as well.
Cory seemed anxious, as if he expected a repeat of the incident from before. He seemed to want to get his revenge towards those who initiated the attack, and was just different these days.
He didn’t show it to me, but he seemed to be more easily irritated towards others. Well, of course he was irritated–he didn’t eat, sleep, and was high-strung all the time.
From what Hylli told me, Cory didn’t sleep in their room these days. Instead, he just read through papers and would scowl angrily when something didn’t seem to go smoothly.
I thought that after some time passed and he figured out some more information, he would slowly come back to his usual self, but Cory was still a ball of anxiousness, fury, and a lot of other mixed emotions as he pushed his body towards its limits, the more he tried to learn about the reason behind the incident.
I had a feeling that he was about to flip the entire table instead of just the dishes of dirt on what happened.
I was just walking when I happened to stumble upon Yves and Cory talking together.
I remembered what had happened in my dream, so I stopped walking and carefully walked towards their vicinity. I wanted to listen to what they were talking about.
But wow, was dream Yves absolute scum or what? He was the one that totally blackened Cory, too.
“So, was there anything that you found out?”
Cory rubbed his tired, irritated face with dry hands as he asked Yves.
“I infiltrated the royal palace because I thought it had to do with black magic, but I didn’t find out much.”
Yves replied to Cory’s question.
Oh, right, they said that Yves was in the royal palace while I was asleep. For him to have gone to the palace because he thought there was a connection between my black magic and the royal family’s black magic. That was kind of touching.
“The only thing I found out was the truth of the royal family’s heirloom. But anyway, the one thing that’s for sure is that black magicians can’t be completely human.”
Yves crossed his arms in front of his chest and calmly went into detail about all of the things he had learned when he was spying in the royal palace.
“Oh, also, even the royals were wary of the principal.”
“…..are they mortal enemies?”
At Cory’s mumble, Yves shook his head. Apparently, they weren’t at that level yet. The academy principal was wary and careful of the royal palace, so it seemed like some natural rivalry had grown between the two.
The academy was fully vigilant against the palace, and the palace was confused as to why a simple academy principal was acting so strangely. They were half curious and half suspicious, and were choosing to stay wary of them just in case.
“I’m not too sure about the principal’s plans, either. The vice principal is the one that appears in public, too.”
Yves thought about it.
“I heard that we could meet the principal if we become student body president. Should I run?”
At Yves’ words, I remembered that dream Yves had also been a student body president. He was completely in line with the principal’s plans there, too.
If Yves became the student body president here, would he be preventing the principal’s plans from taking place instead of helping him? He wouldn’t follow the same route as dream Yves, right?
I wondered what Yves seemed to think about Cory. In the dream, he seemed to play with Cory as if he was a toy, but I wondered how their dynamic worked in this world.
There was a smirk on Yves’ face as he stared at Cory.
“You know, you’re really on edge these days.”
Yves tapped on his arm with his opposite finger.
“It feels like I’m staring at my former self, kind of.”
“…..what?”
Yvnes’ voice was calm and gentle as he looked at Cory, not even a trace of a smile on his face. Dream Yves had kept that dangerous smile of his the entire time.
He was smirking right now, but it was a lot better to see than a fake smile.
“Revenge is good and all, but isn’t the present a bit more important?”
“……”
“Your family is all fine, and the assassin guild that attacked you is already splintered in pieces. They’re all dead.”
Cory quietly listened to his words.
“Even though you don’t know who it is, if they failed their attack, then that means that they’ll keep their head down for now. They won’t be doing anything for a while. They took care of any sort of information leaks, too, so you’re probably not going to get any new information, either/”
And at this point, the more you dig, the more they’ll retreat. Yves added, quietly.
Yvnes tapped Cory’s shoulder once and spoke again.
“I’ll look for who attacked your family. Also, forget about Shushu’s black magic incident and leave it to me.”
Eat some food and get some sleep.
Yvnes gently said to Cory before he looked straight at me.
“Shuraina’s worried.”
Yves seemed like he had known that I was here from the beginning.
At Yves’ words, Cory turned around to stare at the direction Yves was looking.
I was probably in the line of Cory’s sight.
I was holding a bunch of snacks that I was going to give Cory, who wasn’t as energetic as he usually was. It wasn’t embarrassing at all, but I felt uncomfortable in the spotlight. I grabbed one of the snacks in my arms and ate it myself.
“…..Shushu.”
Cory finally looked at me. I shoved the snack in my mouth and responded with a, “Hi.”
I didn’t know what was going through Cory’s head, but a strange expression grew on his face as soon as he looked at me. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut tightly and continued to stare.
I stared at Cory, who looked stricken with guilt, and pulled the corners of my lips up.
“It’s okay, I’ll wait for you.”
I said, quietly. I wasn’t too sure if Cory could hear me.
After wrapping up his conversation with Cory, Yves walked over to me. I had something that I left in my locket, so I was heading towards the main building of the academy. Yves followed after me and called my name.
“Shushu, do you have some time?”
I nodded at Yves’ call. When I turned my head, I saw Yves standing there with a tired expression on his face.
“Yves?”
I wasn’t sure why he was checking if I had time, but I nodded.
And thus, we headed over to the school pagoda. I had come here often to meet with Yves to work on small requests here and there. This place was mostly empty. We had met here recently to work on requests.
Yves rested his head on my shoulder and briefly closed his eyes.
“……”
He stayed quiet.
He called me over like he had some huge, serious thing he needed to talk to me about, then he just stayed there, quiet. I was surprised, but I tried not to show it.
“I went to the royal palace.”
His voice was weak, yet elegant.
“I stayed there until right before you woke up.”
Yves held my hand and started fidgeting with my finger.
He slid off all of the rings that Swan had put on me, then put them in my pocket.
“Do you know what the royal family’s heirloom is?”
Yves raised his head slightly to stare at me. He was so close that I slightly stretched my neck away.
He didn’t have any of the dangerous, sneaky lights in his eyes that I had seen in dream Yves. Instead, he stared right at me with eyes full of affection and worry.
“It was a black-colored mass of muscle. It was letting out an infinite amount of black magic.”
“….a mass?”
“I thought that one of the royals had used that to cast black magic on you.”
Yves said, looking deeply annoyed.
“But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the royal family. The black magic from that time.”
Yves told me that he couldn’t find the person who had cast it on me.
While he spoke, he stretched out his arms to hug my waist and pulled me closer to him.
It had been a long time since I had been pulled into Yves’ arms like this, so I decided to just stay still. It had been a while since I had stopped thinking about the difference between dream and real life Yves.
“This is the first time that I’ve ever felt so blind and at a loss.”
Yves buried his face into my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my skin.
“I’m the kind of person that always thinks that there’s a way to break through a situation.”
“You would.”
Yves smiled slightly at my answer.
“I thought that there had to be a solution when you wouldn’t wake up because of black magic, and that was why I moved, but.”
The wind blew, feeling fresh. The leaves rustled and sounded crisp, but Yves’ voice was heavy.
“I couldn’t see anything.”
Yves let out a huff of fake laughter.
“I was scared. A lot.”
Yves smiled bitterly before he stopped fidgeting with my hand. Instead, he hugged me tighter.
“Help me keep being a good person.”
Yves’ prayer-like words felt strange.
My eyes shifted towards Yves’ arms. Yves’ skin was generally pale, but his right arm was strangely dark. I could feel a bit of black magic, the same kind that flowed in me, in it. That magic was slowly eating at Yves’ arm.
It was obvious that he had been injured while he was researching the royal family’s heirloom. But he hadn’t gotten caught and had escaped. As expected of Yves.
When I stared interestedly at his arm, Yves tried to pull his arm back as naturally as he could.
I felt like I could collect the magic in Yves’ arm, so I quietly stretched out my hand towards his injury.
Just as I thought, as soon as I tried to collect the magic, it cleanly entered my body and purified itself before it began to flow in me.
“Why are you getting charcoal on your arm like that?”
Yves seemed surprised at my words before smiling at me.
“You’re right.”
Yves said something about feeling peaceful with me around and smiled happily.
After my magic at exploded, I had to spent a portion of time to calm down my magic, just like duke Yulinelle had ordered me to. Because of that, I tried to manage my magic at a specified time in a comfortable location.
I downed the medicine that the duke gave me and closed my eyes.
The effects of the medicine were immediate. As the liquid flowed through my body, it calmed my magic down. I calmed down all of the magic swirling in my body, one by one.
There were still some pieces of magic that weren’t completely purified that were running amok in my body, so I had to be especially careful when casting magic–just like the duke had said.
After I had gotten hit by black magic in the Augran mountain, I had gotten some impurities in my magic–black magic. If white magic was generally white and shiny, normal type magic had a diverse array of colors and took slightly different shapes based on individual personalities.
Normal magic was plentiful and common, and white magic was something that I was kind of used to because of Swanhaden, from the Blanche family.
But there was nobody in the empire who had black magic. If it was as Yves and Hylli had said, the only place you could find black magic was at the royal family’s heirloom.
And there had been no human who had been born with black magic. They couldn’t exist.
I took some time to calm down my breath and my magic. Then, I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my magic. I read a book about magic recently, and apparently, the basic of magic control was being able to see your magic when you closed your eyes. It had been something I did often, but it was hard to do after my magic had been mixed. The orange and black magics refused to mesh together and were pushing and pulling at each other.
I’ve been watching Cory carefully these days.
I went over to the green class often, and went over to Cory’s afternoon class, magic, often as well.
Cory seemed anxious, as if he expected a repeat of the incident from before. He seemed to want to get his revenge towards those who initiated the attack, and was just different these days.
He didn’t show it to me, but he seemed to be more easily irritated towards others. Well, of course he was irritated–he didn’t eat, sleep, and was high-strung all the time.
From what Hylli told me, Cory didn’t sleep in their room these days. Instead, he just read through papers and would scowl angrily when something didn’t seem to go smoothly.
I thought that after some time passed and he figured out some more information, he would slowly come back to his usual self, but Cory was still a ball of anxiousness, fury, and a lot of other mixed emotions as he pushed his body towards its limits, the more he tried to learn about the reason behind the incident.
I had a feeling that he was about to flip the entire table instead of just the dishes of dirt on what happened.
I was just walking when I happened to stumble upon Yves and Cory talking together.
I remembered what had happened in my dream, so I stopped walking and carefully walked towards their vicinity. I wanted to listen to what they were talking about.
But wow, was dream Yves absolute scum or what? He was the one that totally blackened Cory, too.
“So, was there anything that you found out?”
Cory rubbed his tired, irritated face with dry hands as he asked Yves.
“I infiltrated the royal palace because I thought it had to do with black magic, but I didn’t find out much.”
Yves replied to Cory’s question.
Oh, right, they said that Yves was in the royal palace while I was asleep. For him to have gone to the palace because he thought there was a connection between my black magic and the royal family’s black magic. That was kind of touching.
“The only thing I found out was the truth of the royal family’s heirloom. But anyway, the one thing that’s for sure is that black magicians can’t be completely human.”
Yves crossed his arms in front of his chest and calmly went into detail about all of the things he had learned when he was spying in the royal palace.
“Oh, also, even the royals were wary of the principal.”
“…..are they mortal enemies?”
At Cory’s mumble, Yves shook his head. Apparently, they weren’t at that level yet. The academy principal was wary and careful of the royal palace, so it seemed like some natural rivalry had grown between the two.
The academy was fully vigilant against the palace, and the palace was confused as to why a simple academy principal was acting so strangely. They were half curious and half suspicious, and were choosing to stay wary of them just in case.
“I’m not too sure about the principal’s plans, either. The vice principal is the one that appears in public, too.”
Yves thought about it.
“I heard that we could meet the principal if we become student body president. Should I run?”
At Yves’ words, I remembered that dream Yves had also been a student body president. He was completely in line with the principal’s plans there, too.
If Yves became the student body president here, would he be preventing the principal’s plans from taking place instead of helping him? He wouldn’t follow the same route as dream Yves, right?
I wondered what Yves seemed to think about Cory. In the dream, he seemed to play with Cory as if he was a toy, but I wondered how their dynamic worked in this world.
There was a smirk on Yves’ face as he stared at Cory.
“You know, you’re really on edge these days.”
Yves tapped on his arm with his opposite finger.
“It feels like I’m staring at my former self, kind of.”
“…..what?”
Yvnes’ voice was calm and gentle as he looked at Cory, not even a trace of a smile on his face. Dream Yves had kept that dangerous smile of his the entire time.
He was smirking right now, but it was a lot better to see than a fake smile.
“Revenge is good and all, but isn’t the present a bit more important?”
“……”
“Your family is all fine, and the assassin guild that attacked you is already splintered in pieces. They’re all dead.”
Cory quietly listened to his words.
“Even though you don’t know who it is, if they failed their attack, then that means that they’ll keep their head down for now. They won’t be doing anything for a while. They took care of any sort of information leaks, too, so you’re probably not going to get any new information, either/”
And at this point, the more you dig, the more they’ll retreat. Yves added, quietly.
Yvnes tapped Cory’s shoulder once and spoke again.
“I’ll look for who attacked your family. Also, forget about Shushu’s black magic incident and leave it to me.”
Eat some food and get some sleep.
Yvnes gently said to Cory before he looked straight at me.
“Shuraina’s worried.”
Yves seemed like he had known that I was here from the beginning.
At Yves’ words, Cory turned around to stare at the direction Yves was looking.
I was probably in the line of Cory’s sight.
I was holding a bunch of snacks that I was going to give Cory, who wasn’t as energetic as he usually was. It wasn’t embarrassing at all, but I felt uncomfortable in the spotlight. I grabbed one of the snacks in my arms and ate it myself.
“…..Shushu.”
Cory finally looked at me. I shoved the snack in my mouth and responded with a, “Hi.”
I didn’t know what was going through Cory’s head, but a strange expression grew on his face as soon as he looked at me. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut tightly and continued to stare.
I stared at Cory, who looked stricken with guilt, and pulled the corners of my lips up.
“It’s okay, I’ll wait for you.”
I said, quietly. I wasn’t too sure if Cory could hear me.
After wrapping up his conversation with Cory, Yves walked over to me. I had something that I left in my locket, so I was heading towards the main building of the academy. Yves followed after me and called my name.
“Shushu, do you have some time?”
I nodded at Yves’ call. When I turned my head, I saw Yves standing there with a tired expression on his face.
“Yves?”
I wasn’t sure why he was checking if I had time, but I nodded.
And thus, we headed over to the school pagoda. I had come here often to meet with Yves to work on small requests here and there. This place was mostly empty. We had met here recently to work on requests.
Yves rested his head on my shoulder and briefly closed his eyes.
“……”
He stayed quiet.
He called me over like he had some huge, serious thing he needed to talk to me about, then he just stayed there, quiet. I was surprised, but I tried not to show it.
“I went to the royal palace.”
His voice was weak, yet elegant.
“I stayed there until right before you woke up.”
Yves held my hand and started fidgeting with my finger.
He slid off all of the rings that Swan had put on me, then put them in my pocket.
“Do you know what the royal family’s heirloom is?”
Yves raised his head slightly to stare at me. He was so close that I slightly stretched my neck away.
He didn’t have any of the dangerous, sneaky lights in his eyes that I had seen in dream Yves. Instead, he stared right at me with eyes full of affection and worry.
“It was a black-colored mass of muscle. It was letting out an infinite amount of black magic.”
“….a mass?”
“I thought that one of the royals had used that to cast black magic on you.”
Yves said, looking deeply annoyed.
“But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the royal family. The black magic from that time.”
Yves told me that he couldn’t find the person who had cast it on me.
While he spoke, he stretched out his arms to hug my waist and pulled me closer to him.
It had been a long time since I had been pulled into Yves’ arms like this, so I decided to just stay still. It had been a while since I had stopped thinking about the difference between dream and real life Yves.
“This is the first time that I’ve ever felt so blind and at a loss.”
Yves buried his face into my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my skin.
“I’m the kind of person that always thinks that there’s a way to break through a situation.”
“You would.”
Yves smiled slightly at my answer.
“I thought that there had to be a solution when you wouldn’t wake up because of black magic, and that was why I moved, but.”
The wind blew, feeling fresh. The leaves rustled and sounded crisp, but Yves’ voice was heavy.
“I couldn’t see anything.”
Yves let out a huff of fake laughter.
“I was scared. A lot.”
Yves smiled bitterly before he stopped fidgeting with my hand. Instead, he hugged me tighter.
“Help me keep being a good person.”
Yves’ prayer-like words felt strange.
My eyes shifted towards Yves’ arms. Yves’ skin was generally pale, but his right arm was strangely dark. I could feel a bit of black magic, the same kind that flowed in me, in it. That magic was slowly eating at Yves’ arm.
It was obvious that he had been injured while he was researching the royal family’s heirloom. But he hadn’t gotten caught and had escaped. As expected of Yves.
When I stared interestedly at his arm, Yves tried to pull his arm back as naturally as he could.
I felt like I could collect the magic in Yves’ arm, so I quietly stretched out my hand towards his injury.
Just as I thought, as soon as I tried to collect the magic, it cleanly entered my body and purified itself before it began to flow in me.
“Why are you getting charcoal on your arm like that?”
Yves seemed surprised at my words before smiling at me.
“You’re right.”
Yves said something about feeling peaceful with me around and smiled happily.
After my magic at exploded, I had to spent a portion of time to calm down my magic, just like duke Yulinelle had ordered me to. Because of that, I tried to manage my magic at a specified time in a comfortable location.
I downed the medicine that the duke gave me and closed my eyes.
The effects of the medicine were immediate. As the liquid flowed through my body, it calmed my magic down. I calmed down all of the magic swirling in my body, one by one.
There were still some pieces of magic that weren’t completely purified that were running amok in my body, so I had to be especially careful when casting magic–just like the duke had said.
After I had gotten hit by black magic in the Augran mountain, I had gotten some impurities in my magic–black magic. If white magic was generally white and shiny, normal type magic had a diverse array of colors and took slightly different shapes based on individual personalities.
Normal magic was plentiful and common, and white magic was something that I was kind of used to because of Swanhaden, from the Blanche family.
But there was nobody in the empire who had black magic. If it was as Yves and Hylli had said, the only place you could find black magic was at the royal family’s heirloom.
And there had been no human who had been born with black magic. They couldn’t exist.
I took some time to calm down my breath and my magic. Then, I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my magic. I read a book about magic recently, and apparently, the basic of magic control was being able to see your magic when you closed your eyes. It had been something I did often, but it was hard to do after my magic had been mixed. The orange and black magics refused to mesh together and were pushing and pulling at each other.
