Chapter 82

Two days had passed.

Though the sun should have risen by now, the view beyond the window remained stubbornly dim.

Mikhail lay in bed, listening to the clamor of rain and the muffled hum of voices before slowly opening his eyes.

'Today's the day of the prayer festival.'

He sat up and pressed a hand to his forehead.

Two memories surfaced through the fog of his sluggish mind.

The first: tossing and turning through a brutal cold, drifting in and out of fever-wracked sleep.

The second: a fleeting glimpse of Julien's eyes, caught in one of those hazy moments of half-consciousness.

'He must've been worried.'

Mikhail spotted the medicine box on the table and let out a quiet laugh.

Then he raised the hand he'd kept tucked beneath the blanket and held his palm out.

Mana gathered above it.

Pzzt!

He studied the smooth, gleaming surface of the dark blue energy.

Two full days of lying completely still had done their work—his mana reserves had replenished just as he'd expected.

His physical condition wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either.

Fwp.

A whimpering sound made him disperse the gathered mana and turn toward the window.

Han and Ul hopped down from the windowsill and padded over to the bed.

Mikhail stroked them under their chins, then glanced outside.

CRACKLE!

The sky beyond the glass flashed white, and a sound like the atmosphere being torn apart rippled outward in every direction.

Mikhail fixed his eyes on the distant view of the lake.

Trails of violet electricity were etching themselves again and again across the unusually low-hanging stormclouds.

'The fountain at the center of the lake—has it started going haywire?'

After gauging the situation, Mikhail turned toward the door.

Voices were seeping in through the gap.

"Did you hear? They've issued a no-entry order near the lake. Festival or not… isn't banning people from the lake a bit much?"

"Are you out of your mind?! They're saying it's never rained this hard during a festival before! In times like these, you err on the side of caution."

"I came to the prayer festival to pray for a little peace and quiet, with everything being so unsettled everywhere else. And now there's chaos here too…."

The voices faded soon enough, swallowed by hurried footsteps.

Mikhail rose and walked to the shelf, where a neatly folded set of active-duty clothes awaited him.

Rustle.

He dressed and moved to the table.

He jotted a few words on a piece of notepaper, then looked at Han and Ul perched on the bed.

"When Julien comes, show him where the note is. I'll be back once I've dealt with this."

---

Meanwhile, at that same hour.

An emergency assembly had been convened at Elfensia's central administrative building to address the anomalous activity at the lake.

Among those summoned was the team of technicians responsible for maintaining the magic tools at the lake's center.

However, only Cashion himself had entered the meeting room.

"Ugh…."

His apprentice and assistant, Terha, was pacing back and forth in front of the lobby, gnawing at her thumbnail.

She was too agitated to sit still.

The reality that all she could do was listen to muffled voices leaking through the meeting room door and stew in frustration was maddening.

'…They want him to go out to the lake and inspect the magic tools? They're only bringing this up NOW? When my master told them the tools needed a more thorough check, they didn't even pretend to listen!'

Terha let out an irritated breath and tilted her head back.

'And on top of that, they've lost the passcode to the magic tool parts warehouse? Just piling it on! Without that, they can't even build the tools they'd need for an emergency inspection!'

It was the worst of the worst.

Part of her wanted to run to her master and beg him to forget all of it and just leave the city.

But she knew that was nothing more than a tantrum.

Her master wasn't the kind of man who turned his back on trouble right in front of him.

"Ugh!"

Terha spun on her heel and stomped out of the building, feet pounding the ground with every step.

She needed fresh air—anything to settle the churning in her gut.

Shaaaaaaaa.

Standing at the entrance, Terha gazed blankly up at the sky.

The miserable rain poured endlessly, as though someone had punched a hole through the heavens.

…Did stormclouds not know how to read a room? No. Obviously not.

Terha was grumbling with a sour expression when a figure in the distance caught her eye, drawing steadily closer.

"Huh?"

The question slipped out before she could stop it.

The closer the rain-cloaked figure came, the stronger a creeping sense of familiarity grew.

Terha tilted her head and focused every ounce of attention on making out the face beneath the hood.

Had she seen someone like this before, somewhere…?

"Ah!"

The moment she spotted dark blue hair swaying gently beneath the cloak, it clicked.

Terha waved both arms wildly at the approaching figure and shouted.

"—Mikhail! Hi!"

Mikhail lifted his hood slightly in response and gave Terha a polite nod.

Before long, the two stood face to face.

"Hello, Terha."

Terha flashed him a grin and looked him up and down.

"Come to think of it, you said you were with the festival team, right? So what brings you here…? Oh! Did they send you as reinforcement?"

Mikhail shook his head with a small smile.

"No, nothing like that."

"Huh? Then what…?"

"I think there's something I can help with."

"…Excuse me?"

Terha's eyes went round, her voice pitching upward.

Mikhail offered an enigmatic smile and leaned in to murmur one more thing.

"Unlocking the warehouse passcode, for instance."

"What? How did you—how could you possibly know about—"

Terha sputtered, mouth opening and closing.

Mikhail punctuated the conversation with a slight upturn of his lips, then brushed past her and continued forward.

"—Terha."

He stopped after five or six steps, turned, and looked back at her.

Above those dark blue eyes, curved in an easy arc, sat a smile laced with quiet significance.

"I think I need to meet your master. Would you mind showing me the way?"

---

Beneath a sky unloading sheets of rain.

Julien stood at the access road leading to the lake and drove a restricted-entry sign deep into the ground.

He'd planted it just hours ago, but the relentless downpour had already knocked it over.

Shaaaaaaaa.

Julien swept his soaked bangs off his forehead and lifted his gaze.

Beyond the dripping thicket, an unsettling current rode the wind—something alien threaded through the gusts.

He stared at the scene and recalled a conversation he'd overheard while passing the other security team members moments ago.

["Man, this rain just won't let up…. By the way, I heard they might issue an evacuation order starting from the lake area. Is that true?"]

["Oh, come on. Don't borrow trouble! It's not that bad yet, so don't go spreading talk like that. Stirring things up won't do anyone any good…."]

Julien blinked away the water trickling down his eyelids and turned around.

He'd intended to go warn Mikhail to get somewhere safe.

He didn't care what the others were saying—this might not be something that could be written off as a simple downpour.

Faint as it was, he could feel something ominous leaking from deep within the lake.

'Mikhail. He still didn't look great this morning. Better to give him a heads-up early. Getting clear might take some time.'

Julien sloshed his way down the waterlogged path.

His steps toward the hotel faltered at every puddle at first, but soon he stopped caring and picked up speed.

The rain drumming against his cloak grew fiercer, as if urging him to move faster.

"……"

Before long, Julien stepped inside the hotel, folded his drenched cloak aside, and headed for Mikhail's room.

The door was firmly shut.

Exactly the way it had been when he'd stopped by briefly that morning.

Knock knock.

"Mikhail, I'm coming in."

He knocked, called out, and opened the door.

Lamplight cast a dim glow through the room, and the faint scent of cedar drifted through the air.

Han and Ul sat huddled together at the window.

Julien gave the foxes a silent nod of greeting and took a step deeper into the room.

"…Mikhail?"

He called the name carefully as he advanced—then stopped short before the empty bed.

The neatly folded bedding bore no trace of anyone having been there.

From the look of it, Mikhail had been gone for quite some time.

"Where on earth did he go…."

Julien was murmuring in a daze when the sky foxes yipped sharply from the corner.

"!"

He whipped his head toward the sound.

Han and Ul sat on the table, batting a scrap of paper with their front paws.

Julien walked over and picked up the note.

【To Julien.

Thanks for covering my duties these past two days. I'm heading out to do my part now. See you later.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ—From your friend, Mikhail Senit.】

Julien stared at the note.

His violet eyes widened and trembled. Between his parted lips, shaky breaths slipped in and out, three, four times.

But the stillness lasted only a moment.

He crumpled the note in his fist, swallowed hard, and spoke through gritted teeth.

"What does he think he's going to accomplish in that condition?"

Julien bit his lip and turned. He stuffed the crushed note into his pocket and strode out of the room.

He had a good idea where Mikhail was headed.

---

The central administrative building, in the heart of the city.

All reinforcement personnel were assigned their first duties there.

Mikhail emerged from the administrative building with Cashion and two others in tow.

He led the group toward the magic tool parts warehouse.

"Master Cashion, a word, if I may."

They were roughly five minutes from their destination.

The warehouse manager, who had been trailing Mikhail with a pinched expression the entire way, finally spoke up.

"Given the circumstances, time is money. Rather than following this boy's word and moving as a group, wouldn't it be more practical to search the shopping district for the parts we need?"

Cashion glanced at the manager, then replied.

"Now, now—the decision's already been made. And that boy isn't the type to bluff for the sake of it. Follow along quietly."

"But no matter how I think about it, this is terribly inefficient. That passcode is written in Ancient Script! There's no way some boy could possibly know—!"

"Care to make a bet?"

The one who cut him off was Mikhail.

The manager flinched at the sight of the boy standing ahead of him, then scrunched his face and shot back.

"A bet?"

"Yes. On whether or not I can crack the passcode."

Mikhail smiled and produced a small coin pouch from his coat, giving it a shake.

"Five gold coins in here. If I can't solve it, they're all yours. But if I do, you have to grant me one request."

"Hmph! Awfully sure of yourself. Fine. Let's see it."

The manager answered without a shred of hesitation. Mikhail let a thin smile slip and pressed on ahead.

Shaaaaaaaa.

After roughly five more minutes of walking, the four of them came to a halt in front of the magic tool parts warehouse.

Mikhail studied the formula—an interlocking weave of polygons and straight lines—then turned to face the warehouse manager behind him.

"I'd like to ask you a few things about the formula."

"Sure, go ahead."

Mikhail tilted his head slightly and asked.

"Who inscribed this formula?"

"Anna Perionel, from the Western Magic Formula Workshop."

"What were the production costs and the completion timeline?"

"About fifty gold for the commission, and it took around a week to finish, if I remember right."

Mikhail gazed down at the formula-inscribed door handle, tapping its surface with his fingertip.

Then, with a sudden curve of his lips, he spoke.

"Hmm. So those were the conditions."

His mouth opened, and several rolling syllables tumbled out in quick succession.

Click.

The formula shed a faint glow, and the locked door swung open.

Mikhail left the slack-jawed manager gaping behind him and turned to Cashion and Terha.

"Let's move. Grab the parts you need first."

"—Wow! He actually solved it! He really did! See? I told you I've got an eye for people! Ahaha! Thanks for the help!"

Terha stuck her tongue out at the warehouse manager, then dashed inside the storage room.

But Cashion didn't follow. He stood rooted in place, his gaze fixed on Mikhail.

"You knew Ancient Script?"

His voice had sharpened to a keen edge. Mikhail answered in his usual tone.

"A little."

"That's not something you pick up from just anyone."

"You're right—I didn't learn it from anyone. I read about it in a library."

"A library?"

"There was one. In the basement of the estate."

Cashion stared into the face of the boy standing before him, and a trembling breath escaped through his lips.

Pat-pat-pat. The steady rhythm of the rain seemed to tap against the surface of his thoughts.

The first to move was Mikhail.

With an air of perfect composure, he took one step closer to Cashion and spoke.

"Mikhail Senit. It's good to meet you, Cashion Retri."

Cashion squeezed his eyes shut and let out a hollow breath.

His body—solid as an old oak—lost its center and swayed, as though the name alone had struck him like a physical blow.