Chapter 57

The early sunset spilled across Julien's upturned eyes.

He squinted against the light and cast his mind back to every moment Mikhail had done something that didn't quite add up.

Moments he'd been too consumed by his own mana to examine closely.

At school. Off campus. And just now….

Julien slowly drew his gaze down from the sky and fixed it straight ahead.

He stared at the quiet landscape and sifted through fragments of the past.

The way he spoke to me during the Individual Role Evaluation.

[…Don't be nervous. All anyone's going to look at is how much damage the dummy took.]

The way he kept checking on me while we were on the mission.

[Let's move. Follow the road and we'll reach the request office soon.]

[Watch where you're going.]

And just now, in that alley.

[…….]

The eyes that had looked down at him in silence reminded Julien of an owl—the kind said to see through even the deepest dark.

A thin, pained sound slipped through his teeth.

What surfaced at the end of every scene he'd replayed was the single line Mikhail had thrown at him in that alley while chasing the pickpocket.

[You're doing okay, right?]

Looking back now, every moment Mikhail had stepped deliberately into his awareness…

overlapped and layered with the times he'd been struggling under the weight of his overflowing mana.

"……."

Julien stood motionless and blinked, slow and heavy.

The mind that had been raking through old memories was already piecing together reasons to explain Mikhail's behavior, snapping them into place one by one.

It really is just a string of ridiculous coincidences. Maybe the timing lined up a little too neatly. …Yeah. Obviously that's all it is. But if it's not coincidence, then—

The thought thinned to a wisp and broke off.

Julien let his head drop and raised both trembling hands to cover his face.

A faint groan bled through his sealed lips.

"Nnh… hh…."

…The truth was, a single worst-case scenario had surfaced without warning and flooded his mind so completely he couldn't bear it.

A pitch-black grip reached out from somewhere deep in his memory, seized his consciousness, and dragged every thought downward.

Does Mikhail… actually know my secret? That I've been hiding my power?

Julien choked out a ragged breath.

Between his spread fingers, jagged blue lines began flickering to life across the dirt below—pulsing in irregular bursts.

No. That can't happen. My entire life hangs on this secret. If even a whisper gets out and crosses Father… I lose everything. My family. My mana. My name…. So he absolutely, absolutely cannot know. Anything but the secret slipping out of my hands—!

The mana beneath his skin spiked razor-sharp. Stuttering static clawed at the edges of his hearing.

Then, without warning, a grating metallic screech rang out.

"!"

Julien froze mid-motion. He went perfectly still, nothing but his heaving breaths left to mark the silence.

He anchored his eyes on the plain, unremarkable scenery around him and walled off the torrent of memories rushing in like floodwater.

He painted nothing but blank darkness inside his head and severed every rising thought by force.

"Hh… haah."

Julien steadied his breathing and curled his shaking body as tight as it would go. The raw edges of his nerves began, slowly, to settle.

Every memory and hypothesis that had been tearing through his mind—

He broke them into the smallest pieces he could manage, loaded them onto each inhale, and pushed them down deep into his chest, over and over.

"Phew."

Some stretch of empty time passed. Julien's tightly pressed lips parted and released a single thread of hollow laughter.

His hunched shoulders hitched once, twice—and then he burst into loud, open laughter.

"Ahaha, hahaha, hahahahaha!"

The bright sound poured out of him as he straightened his curled body and let his hands fall from his face.

He snapped his head up, shook it back and forth, and forced cheer into his voice.

As if he'd just heard the most ridiculous thing—no, because what he'd been thinking truly was ridiculous, he told himself—

He launched into scolding his own foolishness.

"That—that doesn't even make sense! Think about it! You'd have to be completely delusional to jump to that conclusion! Hiding my power? What possible reason would anyone have to think that I, or my family, would do something that absurd? Right? Am I wrong?"

A mountain bird fluttered into the air as if answering the question. Julien watched the wingbeats shrink into the distance, snickering the whole time.

A little more, a little louder—he pressed each laugh down onto the anxiety still squirming inside him and shoved it away.

The chaos in his head gradually settled back to something resembling normal.

"Ha."

A moment later, Julien let out a breath that felt noticeably lighter and rummaged through the bag he'd brought.

What his hand pulled free was a small garden trowel.

"……."

With practiced movements, Julien dug a shallow pit.

Deep enough to fit an adult's arm, he swept every last fragment of relic debris inside.

Clatter.

The damp hole swallowed the wreckage without a trace. Julien piled the dirt back over it.

With so much less space to fill now, it didn't take long to restore the surface to how it had been.

"Haah…."

Julien sighed, brushed the dust from his hands, and surveyed the result.

The ground, every gap packed smooth, looked exactly the way it had when he'd first arrived.

"……."

He gazed at the dirt floor for a while, then let a faint smile settle on his lips.

Good enough. Everything had turned out fine.

If that was the case, then the next thing left to wrap up was—

I need to go back and thank Mikhail. For getting me away from those guards. For keeping an eye on me while I wasn't doing so well. I caused him a lot of trouble, so I should find a way to repay him. And….

Julien paused the thoughts that had been flowing one into the next and held back for a beat.

The trace of a smile faded from his face. His hand drifted up to fidget with the back of his neck.

A moment of hesitation—brief, barely there—and then it was gone.

Julien put on a smile a shade softer than before and settled on the last thing he needed to say.

I have to tell him to stop worrying about me. I need to make that clear.

That was as far as the thought went.

Snap.

Julien flipped open the emptied bag.

He turned toward the dense cluster of trees beside him and broke off a few leafy branches.

The hollow bag was soon stuffed full of twigs and foliage.

Ziiiip.

Julien cinched the drawstring and sealed the bag shut.

Swollen back to its former shape, the pack went over his shoulder as he turned toward the village.

Whoooosh—.

A gust of wind drifted in from beyond the hill. Julien stopped and looked toward where it had come from.

The breeze that had just grazed his cheek felt similar to what he'd sensed when they'd first arrived at the village.

A little sharper than most. A faint sting to it. And—

"……."

Julien lowered his eyes and gazed quietly at his own palm.

The mana flowing beneath his skin was stirring. In a rhythm slightly more regular than before.

That much, at least… felt a little more stable than it had.

Julien stood there for a long moment, then gently closed the hand he'd been watching. A thin smile crossed his lips, and he started walking.

---

The wine village of Colton Winery was ringed by hills of every size, large and small, that served as vineyard land along the outskirts.

Most of those hills sat on dry, parched ground.

But among them—just one.

A single low hill, damper and softer than the rest, left unused for grape cultivation.

"……."

It had been roughly ten minutes since he'd entered the hill. Mikhail, having parted ways with Bant, pressed forward through the dense undergrowth.

Narrow trails that might have served as landmarks had begun appearing in broken, intermittent stretches.

The guide ribbons that earlier travelers typically left behind were nowhere to be seen.

But I already know the layout, and if it comes to it, I can rely on Han and Ul. No problems there.

As he walked, Mikhail recalled the muttering of the man he'd crossed paths with at the village entrance.

Information that pointed straight to his destination.

[Two on the left. Three on the right. Five in the center.]

Before long, Mikhail stopped. At the edge of his vision stood dense thickets and weathered stone structures.

Statues shaped into spheres, curved forms, and even the figures of several foxes.

Every last one of them was cracked and moss-covered—nothing more than eyesores at first glance.

But hidden within one of them was mana that had been condensed since ancient times.

"……."

Mikhail pulled his gaze from the scene and looked at a single green ash tree standing nearby.

Then he ducked behind a moss-covered spiral statue and signaled for Han and Ul to find cover as well.

"Kang!"

A sharp bark, a rustle of undergrowth, and the sky foxes vanished from sight.

Once everyone had settled into hiding, silence fell.

Mikhail held his breath, pressed his eyes to the gap between the stone structures, and watched the space ahead.

"……."

…Two, maybe three minutes from now.

That was all the time left before the pickpocket who'd been terrorizing Colton Winery showed themselves.

Crunch. Crunch.

Before long, the sound of someone trampling through the brush grew unmistakable.

Just as expected, the presence drew steadily closer. Mikhail held his breath.