Chapter 62

"Ha."

Julien forced the breath out and caught his knees just before they buckled.

The moment those words reached him, his throat clamped shut and his heart hammered like it would burst. His mind went blank.

But… he held on. Barely.

He couldn't let the shock show. Falling apart now would only hand Mikhail the confirmation he was looking for.

Julien dragged the corners of his mouth upward and spoke.

"Oh, what kind of joke— you really got me! Ahaha… you scared me half to death! Come to think of it, I've never seen you joke around before. Hmm, I guess this is what happens when you spend enough time together on a mission. This kind of experience is actually kind of…."

Julien raised his voice. He laughed louder than usual and waved his hand dismissively.

"……."

But Mikhail's expression didn't change. He watched in silence, then slowly opened his mouth and let a voice like ice slip through.

"It's not a joke. Julien Leventia."

The sound cut clean through his chest like a blade of frost.

Julien's smile faltered. He swallowed the hollow breath that escaped before he could stop it.

The dark blue eyes staring straight at him glinted sharp—as if they'd never let him slip away.

"You're not as slow as you pretend to be. You don't only have pathetic skills. And the mana you carry isn't as unremarkable as you'd have everyone believe. Not even close to what the others think they know."

Mikhail's words carried an unmistakable certainty.

The weight of it slammed into Julien before he could brace against it. His head dropped at an angle.

…He had to think. He had to come up with the best possible response for this situation.

The fragmented thoughts rattling through his skull began grinding into motion—like gears of every size locking together, clunking to life.

"……."

Julien steadied his breathing and assessed where he stood.

No matter how he looked at it, nothing was in his favor. He was in no position to brush off Mikhail's suspicions with easy composure.

The one thing he'd wanted to hide most had been struck dead-center.

Given how badly he'd been shaken, keeping calm wasn't going to be easy. It would show on his face—he was certain of it.

He needed to get away. Somehow. There'd be a chance to salvage this under better circumstances.

Julien lifted his bowed head and spoke in an apologetic tone.

"Mikhail. Sorry, but let's stop here for tonight. The truth is, I don't think I'm feeling well. I've got a fever coming on and my eyelids keep getting heavy. I'm really sorry. Let's pick this up later, I promise. Okay?"

Julien wrapped up the conversation in a coaxing voice, turned his back on Mikhail, and started toward the path he'd come from.

"Julien."

But the voice that followed seized his stride like a command and stopped him dead.

Julien stood in place and slowly turned around. Mikhail stood at the center of his shifting vision.

Mikhail narrowed his eyes. Then he spoke in the same tone as before.

"If you walk away now, I'll never bring this up in front of you again."

The bewildering statement made Julien flinch.

Mikhail continued without pause.

"What that means is—how much I know, what I want, how far this negotiation goes—you lose any chance of controlling the information I have. It gets a lot harder from here. If that's what you want, then go ahead."

"……."

"But I'll make you a promise. If you don't run from this conversation, I'll tell you every truth I know."

Julien stood there, motionless, staring at Mikhail. Then he bit down on the inside of his lip and let his head fall.

What Mikhail had just laid out as the price of leaving was, for him, the worst possible option.

"……."

Through the storm of thoughts, Julien grasped for the best course of action.

Dismantling Mikhail's certainty.

He needed to find out what else Mikhail knew about him—how far his knowledge of past events actually reached.

And the moment he found a crack in that reasoning, he'd drive straight through it and bring it all crumbling down.

Julien raised his eyes and met Mikhail's face again.

The violet irises that had been pinned to the ground rose upward and began to burn with a different light.

"Tell me. What made you so sure."

Mikhail looked at Julien, who stood rooted in place and stared back at him as if nailed there.

He could already guess the approach Julien had settled on.

He'd listen for gaps in the argument. Probe for weaknesses. Try to tear down every shred of certainty.

But the premise itself was flawed.

Mikhail had been watching for every piece of evidence he'd need to shake Julien—and more than that, he'd known every secret from the very beginning.

"……."

After a measured pause. Mikhail began to speak.

"I could tell you weren't as slow as your reputation suggested from the day we played chess."

The day they'd first met at Haeron's magic tool shop.

The chessboard laid between them. The movement of the pieces.

Julien watching his opponent's gestures and expressions, moving the white pieces with quiet precision.

The vivid moments flickered past Mikhail's eyes.

"You read your opponent's blind spots through every new move, predicted the variables ahead and their range, and adjusted the flow of the game. All so I wouldn't lose interest—keeping the level just close enough. In reality, that requires weaving together the situation and the opponent, conditions and constraints, continuity and deviation, all at once."

A fine tremor ran through the skin around Julien's eyes. But he quickly masked it, settling his expression into something calm.

He slipped back into his usual self—scratching the back of his head, draping a careless grin across his face.

"Oh, I see. I can understand how you'd think that. But Mikhail… we only played one game together, right? It could've just been a string of lucky coinciden—"

"Second."

Mikhail cut the sentence off with a voice that left no room. He had no intention of surrendering control of the conversation.

"As for your skills not being purely pathetic—I figured that out watching you during the Individual Role Evaluation. I saw you crush your own fingertip to break a spell right before it finished forming."

Mikhail recalled the scene from the evaluation.

The mana that had erupted from Julien's fingertips in a single flash.

In the instant everyone's eyes had been drawn to the new shape—the sphere that proved the spell's power—

Julien had inflicted pain on his own body, scattered his focus, and dragged the spell's output down.

"And third."

Mikhail gave Julien no opening to cut in. He held the gaze of the boy whose color had changed and pressed forward.

"I don't know if you even noticed, but… you've been releasing pale blue mana. Twice, since we arrived here."

A beat of silence fell between them.

Mikhail stared straight ahead without a word. Julien stood as though he'd been struck from behind, frozen in place.

"…Ha."

Then, as if a silencing spell had broken, Julien let out a sharp, jagged breath.

He shook his head back and forth—and then snapped it up.

His lips stretched into a wide grin and a forcefully bright voice poured out.

"Oh, I see! So that's what it was! Thanks for explaining! …Hmm, yeah, I can see how you'd come to that conclusion."

"……."

"But… it's all a misunderstanding! Because everything you picked up on was short… and fragmentary. A single semester—no, barely even a few weeks' worth of moments, that's all!"

Julien spread his arms wide like a stage actor and leaned forward.

His charged gaze locked onto Mikhail's face.

"This is a little awkward to say, but… we haven't known each other that long, right? But the friends who've been around me for years all say the same thing. That I'm spectacularly unremarkable and stupid on top of it! So you just happened to see some misleading moments. The real me is different from—"

Mikhail opened his mouth and cut him off.

"What I needed to see through you weren't drawn-out stretches of time. They were a handful of decisive moments."

"……."

"And the friends you'd claim to have—weren't they factors you had under control from the start?"

Mikhail laid a short breath across the gap like a drawbridge and continued.

"Have you ever—even once—given your genuine best effort in an evaluation?"

"!"

"The hopeless, indecisive, and dim-witted Julien. That's the image you wanted. The one you worked to create."

Julien went silent. Mikhail carried on without a hitch.

"You never drew unnecessary attention to yourself. You never earned conspicuously high marks at the academy."

"……."

"If you want to properly understand why you did all of that, you have to look at the root. Julien, the truth is, you're actually…."

"—No, that's not it. I'm telling you!"

Julien's voice cracked as it tore free. His violet irises drifted with nowhere to land, lost for a fleeting moment.

But only a moment. Julien had no intention of giving up the denial.

He forced strength into his wavering knees, stood straight, and shook his head as he spoke.

"Mikhail…. You've got it all wrong. Oh, how did this… how did it end up like this? This is a little overwhelming…. Hiding my abilities and pretending to be weak? That doesn't even make sense. …Right. I'm a Leventia. That legendary southern mage family. Deliberately tarnishing a prestigious name like that would be the same as spitting in my own face, in my father's name, in our family's reputation. When everyone's desperate to claim one more capable fighter, why in the world would I hide what I have? There's no reason. Right?"

Mikhail breathed out a quiet sigh.

After a measured pause, he softened his tone slightly and nodded.

"Yeah. You're right. It makes no sense. …But that's exactly what pointed me in the right direction."

Mikhail blinked slowly and looked straight ahead. He took one step toward Julien.

"Julien, I'm the legitimate heir of the North. The son of Joseph Senit—the man your father despises more than anyone."

North. Despises. Father. Joseph.

Each clipped word that fell from Mikhail's lips made Julien flinch as though struck in a nerve.

His ragged breathing began spiking in sharp, irregular bursts.

But Mikhail's face remained blank.

His level tone carried on without a single shift in pitch.

"It's not a hatred I can't understand. The North's rise must have meant the South's decline. Joseph's glory must have been Garelt's humiliation. A nameless mage from common blood achieved what even a house as storied as theirs couldn't—and became the shield at the front lines. Through nothing but magical ability alone."

"What are you… suddenly trying to say?"

"Your family. The environment you were raised in. When I factored those in and traced the situation backward, something clicked."

Mikhail tapped his temple in a thinking rhythm, brow furrowed—as though sifting through deductions.

Then, with the slow deliberation of a detective who'd found the decisive thread, he lowered his hand.

"Would your family really have wanted to face a scene that reminded them of their greatest shame? Something like, say."

Mikhail swallowed a beat of silence, then drove the words home like a nail.

"A bastard they'd always dismissed as beneath them—rising on sheer ability to surpass the legitimate heir."