**Chapter 51**
—
That night, in the Duke of Saxen’s mansion within the Imperial Capital.
*Did he really summon me all the way here just to watch those fledglings play around?*
After several days of absurd commotion, Dale sat cross-legged on his bed, lost in thought.
No matter how he looked at it, there was no way the Marquis of Blood had invited him to the Imperial Academy for something so trivial. His thoughts drifted back to the twelve *Purifiers* who had attacked his cavalry on the River Saxen—fanatics who hadn’t hesitated to burn their own flesh to ash.
Compared to them, the noble heirs of the Imperial Academy were laughably green. They likely believed, without a shred of doubt, that they were destined to become the Red Tower’s sorcerers—elite among the Empire’s elite. Yet they didn’t even realize they would be nothing more than the Tower’s puppets.
*In the end, they’re just children who know nothing of the world.*
With that thought, Dale turned his head—just as a knock came at the door.
**Knock, knock.**
“Dale.”
It was an all too familiar voice.
“Teacher Sephia?”
“May I come in for a moment?”
At the words *‘into his bedroom’*, Dale nearly choked on his breath.
“Please… come in.”
His answer came immediately, without the slightest hesitation.
When Sephia entered cautiously, Dale’s breath caught again.
She was dressed in a nightgown of pure white silk, embroidered with dark lace. Her crystalline hair, still damp, fell in soft, disheveled waves. Between the folds of silk, glimpses of her alabaster skin shone faintly in the lamplight.
“…Ahem.”
Perhaps realizing where his eyes were fixed, Sephia cleared her throat softly, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
“I had just finished bathing and was about to change, but… well, I seem to have nothing suitable to wear.”
After another exaggerated little cough, she sat on the edge of his bed—right beside him, atop the feather-filled blankets.
Silence fell between them. An awkward silence.
“…Thank you, for accompanying me all the way to the capital,” Dale said at last, breaking it carefully.
“Of course.”
Regaining her composure, Sephia smiled gently.
“Did you find the Academy’s lectures satisfactory?”
“They can’t compare to yours, Teacher.”
Dale grinned mischievously, and Sephia returned it with a soft, kind smile. Again, silence settled.
“…That day.”
It was Sephia who broke it this time.
“I saw the look on your face when you mourned your fallen knights.”
Her voice lowered.
“I failed to protect you from the Purifiers.”
Though she had unleashed storms of frost upon the orc riders and even rang out the dissonant notes of azure fire, that day Sephia had only barely managed to shield Dale. It was not the full measure of power one would expect from a Sixth-Circle elven sorceress.
“Please don’t blame yourself.”
Dale quietly shook his head.
“You protected me, Teacher. The loss of Saxen’s blades was my own mistake.”
“No.”
Sephia shook her head just as softly.
“Did I not promise to stay by your side?”
She reached out her hand.
“That promise did not mean I would protect only *you*.”
“…?”
Her slender fingers closed around his.
“I only wished for you not to be sad anymore.”
“Teacher Sephia…”
The warmth of the Snow Elf flowed from her hand into his—gentle, sincere.
“For one so young to possess a philosophy so hollow, a world so empty of meaning… I doubt I could ever truly understand why.”
When two mages resonate—when their inner worlds touch and respond to one another—they can feel what the other feels. Even knowing that what she felt was merely *a reflection born from contact with Dale’s world*, nothing changed. Sephia still affirmed him, though she fought desperately to restrain the tenderness and affection that even she could no longer control.
It was love—love in its purest, most selfless form.
A love that resembled **Agape**.
For this was the “calling” she had resolved to bear from the very first moment she faced the world within this boy’s soul.
—
—
At that very hour, in the residence of Count Walter.
Leonard returned from the red-light district, drunk as usual. But unlike other nights, the place he headed to upon his return was different.
“L–Lord Leonard!”
The butler stammered in alarm as Leonard shouted back,
“Shut up, you decrepit old bastard!”
“B–but the Count has forbidden entry to the basement…”
“The Count’s *heir* says he’s going—what gives you the right to stop me?”
Shrugging off the butler’s desperate pleas, Leonard marched toward the underground chamber where the former Elder of the Red Tower, *Walter the Bloodflame*, kept his artifact sealed away. He wrenched the key from the butler’s hands.
He thought of Dale’s calm face that morning—calm, as if nothing had ever happened. And then he understood.
To Dale of Saxen, Leonard Walter was not even *worth noticing*.
“I’ll show that damned brat…” Leonard muttered, the stench of liquor thick on his breath.
“I’ll show him that *I*, Leonard Walter, am the greatest magical genius in the Empire!”
What the Saxen heir had displayed that day, Leonard told himself, was not talent—it was merely the power of an *artifact*. Yes. That was the only difference between them.
Talent had nothing to do with it.
Only the possession—or lack—of an artifact.
And so Leonard did not hesitate. He cared nothing for the danger of handling power he could not possibly control.
—
—
The next day, in the great lecture hall of the Third Circle’s upper division at the Imperial Academy.
“It seems the monster hunters have completed the capture of the creatures that will be used in the graduation exams.”
Only a few weeks remained before the Academy’s final graduation trials.
It was, to Dale, a matter of indifference. But if the exams were to take place while he was still in the capital, he could hardly just sit idle and watch.
*Still, there’s nothing to worry about.*
Such trials were hardly worth his effort. What lingered in his mind instead was the image of Sephia from the night before.
Her emotions, he knew, were no more than illusions born from the resonance between her mind and his own “world.” Even after realizing that, Dale’s feelings did not change.
He wanted her to stay by his side.
He did not want to let her go.
And that truth stirred a strange, unshakable guilt in him.
*Not something to dwell on right now.*
He turned his head to clear his thoughts—and saw Leonard.
“…”
Leonard, uncharacteristically silent, unsettlingly so.
*Has he finally grown up a little?*
Dale dismissed it lightly.
In a sense, this was exactly what people meant when they said geniuses could never understand the minds of the ordinary.
—
—
That afternoon, the Academy held mock duels in preparation for the graduation exams.
The first duelist was Leonard Walter. Unfortunately for one unlucky student, he was chosen as Leonard’s opponent.
Neither particularly gifted nor talentless, the student was merely one of the many who obeyed Leonard’s rule. And as the duel began, the supervising professor could not hide his unease.
Ever since *that incident*, something about Leonard had changed. He couldn’t quite say what—but the boy had grown unnervingly quiet. The tyrant who once ruled the Academy now kept an unreadable silence.
Unlike Dale, who dismissed it as simple maturity, the professor knew Leonard’s nature too well to feel at ease.
“W–well then… we’ll begin the duel between Leonard and Valer.”
His voice trembled.
Leonard himself was not what frightened him—not directly. The gap between a Third-Circle and a Fourth-Circle mage was still a wall, after all. What terrified the professor was the man who stood behind Leonard: *Walter the Bloodflame*, Elder of the Red Tower—an even greater tyrant than his son.
To a mere Fourth-Circle like himself, the Elders of the Red Tower were beings one could never afford to offend.
The duel’s opening flame rose.
“Hey.”
Leonard’s voice cut through the air. He wasn’t even preparing a spell—just pointing a finger toward Dale.
“Use an attack spell on that Saxen brat.”
“L–Leonard? What are you—”
“Or would you rather die by my spell right here?”
The student’s face drained of color. Leonard’s hand pulsed with writhing crimson mana.
Even now, he refused to dirty his own hands—proof of his inherent cowardice and malice.
“L–Leonard!” the professor cried out.
“Shut your mouth, you talentless old fool.”
Leonard’s tone was sharp, venomous.
“Sixty years old, still groveling at the Fourth Circle—what gives you the right to open that filthy mouth?”
“L–Leonard!”
“Before I tell Father, keep quiet.”
The tension in the hall thickened.
“Hey, you worthless bastards—what’s this? You scared of *him* more than me, huh?”
Leonard’s voice rose again.
“So you’re saying you’re more afraid of that damned Saxen brat than of *Leonard Walter*? Is that it?”
He glared at all the top students of the Third Circle.
“Then aim your spells at him! Now!”
As his shout echoed, the crimson mana in his hand flared into a blazing inferno—far too powerful for any Third-Circle mage.
*An artifact…!*
“Everyone, fall back!” Dale shouted.
A vortex of flame erupted at Leonard’s feet, fierce enough that even the supervising professor dared not intervene. Dale struck forward with his own *azure mana*—the magic of frost and void, drawn from that wintry world within himself.
Even the artifact’s borrowed fire could not stand against it. The flames subsided.
“H–ha… ha…”
Leonard let out a weak laugh as the embers faded.
“So… you’ve finally shown yourself, my real opponent.”
It was not the laughter of despair.
“Let’s begin, shall we? The battle to decide the Empire’s greatest talent.”
Leonard’s grin widened.
Dale stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Seriously? Do kids these days hit puberty after twenty?”
