Chapter 54

Mikhail raised his left hand. His eyes narrowed as he brought it down hard on Julien's hand where it rested on the table.

BANG.

The raucous chatter died in an instant.

Mikhail looked down at Julien's fingers twitching beneath his palm, then raised his eyes.

Julien was turning his head toward him in stiff, jerking increments.

The violet eyes that met his gaze were hazy—like someone wandering through a dream they couldn't wake from.

"...Jose...ph."

Julien breathed the fractured syllables out in a whisper. Mikhail put force behind his voice.

"Julien."

Julien's head dropped with a dull thud. His hunched shoulders hitched once, twice, and the trembling in his fingertips gradually stilled.

Mikhail withdrew his hand and shifted his gaze to Edwin across the table, who was saying something or other.

Far from continuing his tirade, Edwin was busy making excuses to the patrons and servers stealing glances their way.

"—Oh, that! These two sometimes arm-wrestle a little too hard! It's nothing! They're not fighting! Sorry for the disturbance. Please, carry on. Ha, haha. Hahahaha!"

"Kang! Kang-kang!"

Mikhail stared at Edwin's overblown laughter, then let out a deflating breath.

"Thanks for the save."

Edwin whipped his head around. His eyes went wide as he leaned in, grinding his teeth together while hissing under his breath.

"Hey. What was that about? You slam the table out of nowhere and kill the mood—everyone's staring at us like we're insane. We almost got thrown out on the spot!"

Edwin's voice carried about eighty percent scolding and twenty percent genuine grievance.

Mikhail gave a light shrug and curled the corner of his mouth upward.

"Well, thanks to you, we dodged a disaster. Nice work."

"Unbelievable."

Edwin smacked his own forehead in disbelief and stuck out his tongue.

In the meantime, Mikhail glanced between Han and Ul and gave them a subtle look. Follow me.

"Kang."

A bright answer. Mikhail rose from his seat.

Two things demanded his immediate attention.

First: the opening step toward resolving the mission by following the original storyline and claiming the rewards.

That meant transferring the wind power the pickpocket had been exploiting, then arranging for the culprit to be captured by the guards.

And second—

Something tied to longer-term growth.

Getting Julien to open up about his secret.

Making him reveal the true potential he'd been hiding, and using that as a turning point to fuel his own advancement.

On top of that, one more thing to keep in mind...

In the original story, Julien had been less than a third-rate extra—a character with no connection whatsoever to the main plot.

Which meant the relationship Mikhail built with him would be something entirely his own. A contact point that belonged to no one else's storyline.

One that could prove very useful down the road.

"—Edwin."

A moment later, Mikhail wrapped up the thread of thought.

He called Edwin's name in an even voice, then turned his head toward the entrance.

The door was swinging gently back and forth despite the complete absence of wind. Mikhail fixed his gaze on it and continued.

"I'm going to catch the pickpocket. Keep an eye on Julien for me."

"What? Hey, where's this pickpocket stuff coming from all of a sudden? And what's wrong with him that I need to—"

Edwin's voice cut off mid-sentence. He'd finally taken a proper look at Julien's condition.

Mikhail pressed his brow tight and spoke in a measured tone.

"Julien's going to be like this for a while. So just check on him, and if he keeps his head down and really can't seem to snap out of it—"

Mikhail drew out the end of his sentence, pausing deliberately.

He blinked slowly, gathering his thoughts, then continued.

"Tell him to think about the conversation he and I had at the school's registration office."

"...Huh?"

"And if he suddenly says he needs to step out—don't stop him. Just let him go. I'll explain everything... when I can."

Mikhail pushed away from the table to punctuate the end of the conversation.

He gave the still-bewildered Edwin a brief nod, then broke for the entrance at a run.

Han and Ul bounded along at his heels.

"Kyarng."

Mikhail cleared the doorway in a single stride and tore down the road leading to the back of the village.

His mind was already working.

At this rate, I can catch the pickpocket before sundown. But there's something I need to take care of first.

Mikhail slowed his pace. Right on cue, a pair of patrol guards emerged from the alley ahead.

Mikhail turned aside and ducked behind a signboard propped in front of a shop, killing every trace of his presence.

Running into them would only create hassle. At least right now.

"Tch. What kind of pickpocket is this that we can't even catch a glimpse? How many weeks has it been now? What a pain."

"This is humiliating. The entire village guard force is out here and we still can't nab one thief? How does that even make sense?"

The guards traded irritated complaints as they passed right by Mikhail.

Thud.

Mikhail listened to the footsteps fade.

When the last echoes had thinned to nothing, he swung back toward the road and pressed forward.

His eyes tracked the guards as they moved off into the distance.

They were filing into an alley several blocks away—more thorough than their usual patrol route.

"......"

Mikhail watched them disappear, then lowered his gaze and clenched the hand at his side.

Before going after the pickpocket, one thing.

He needed to start laying the groundwork to turn his relationship with Julien into something he could use.

---

—Tap, tap.

His consciousness was a fog. Julien's eyelids drifted open and shut in a sluggish rhythm.

His mind felt hollow—like wreckage left behind after a tidal wave. His body hung limp, a marionette with its strings cut.

"......"

Julien blinked again.

As he did, he recognized his current state for what it was: the kind of thing people called apathy, or total numbness.

But... that was all. He had no will, no resolve, to pull himself out of it.

Is there even a point... in holding on?

Someday. In the not-so-distant future. The blue catastrophe buried inside his body would devour everything he was.

In a form that couldn't be escaped, couldn't be fought, couldn't be broken—pure inevitability.

The vivid certainty of that tragedy gnawed at his consciousness like blight eating through a leaf. Crushing every scrap of optimism as it crept closer, step by step.

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

"—Look. —lien. —What's wrong with. —God, I'm losing it."

Scraps of noise brushed against his ears like dead leaves and fell away.

Julien hunched lower, curling his shoulders inward.

What rose from the pit of his cornered mind was an impulse he'd been denying all along.

"—hail. —said. —What was it. —Ugh."

...If it was all going to end in the worst possible way, wouldn't it be better to abandon these pointless hopes and just paint the picture desire demanded?

Satisfaction and release—that would be enough.

There was no one left who expected anything from someone as worthless as him. No one who'd live up to his expectations, either.

"—Hey, think about what Mikhail said at the registration office!"

In that instant, a voice bellowed loud enough to split the darkness and drove itself straight into his skull.

Julien sucked in a sharp breath and sat bolt upright.

What surfaced alongside it was a voice from the past—vivid and unmistakable.

[I don't think for a second that bad blood between the previous generation needs to carry over to us.]

[So—I'd like us to be friends. You and me.]

The words struck the very thoughts that had been feeding the impulse, head-on.

They snapped the downward spiral clean in two.

Julien's eyes flew wide. He gasped for breath. The scene flooding his vision was solid again—anchored in the real.

"Wow, it actually worked. Just like Mikhail said."

Edwin's stunned mutter faded into the background as Julien blinked his stinging eyes and whispered.

"How... how did I end up... like this."

Julien retraced what had happened in a daze.

After being all but shooed out of the request office, they'd come to this tavern on the village outskirts. Ordered drinks and biscuits.

Then Edwin had gotten worked up and started ranting, and somehow that voice had been unbearably loud.

And then things spiraled out of control, and the irritation kept building, and—

Before he even realized it...

"...!"

Julien lurched to his feet, the chair scraping beneath him.

In those moments when his awareness had flickered, mana had gathered at his fingertips, churning and roiling.

The instant he recognized what that meant—that he'd been on the brink of eruption—every drop of blood in his body turned to ice.

Julien swept the hall with trembling eyes, then grabbed the backpack sitting beside him.

It held the relics he'd scraped together and brought along.

Clank.

The clatter of metal on metal rang out with piercing clarity.

Julien clutched the bag and spun toward the tavern exit—

Then stopped. He looked at Edwin.

"......"

Edwin sat with his chin propped in one hand, staring straight at him. Suspicion was written across every line of his face and every angle of his posture, and Julien's feet froze where they stood.

"Edwin. I need to... step out for a bit."

The words came out stilted and halting, each syllable forced through an awkward smile.

Edwin seemed to think it over. Then he cocked his head and let a dry half-laugh slip through his nose.

"This one's real too."

Julien blinked at the cryptic remark.

But Edwin had already pulled his gaze away, letting out a sharp breath through his nose.

A single quiet exhale hung in the air between them. Then Edwin waved his hand in dismissal, the gesture saying he'd seen enough.

"Fine. If you've got somewhere to be, go. Don't ask me to explain it."

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