Chapter 68

From the next day on, Helio became unusually motivated. It wasn’t that he had lacked motivation until now, but still. He devoured knowledge vigorously, and he also showed immense interest in honing his own magic attribute. It was as though he believed that if he refined it enough, his magic could truly become a blade.

But before long, he ran into a barrier.

“Because your magic is very dangerous, practice can only be carried out in a limited way.”

“What?”

Helio, who had held a grand dream of submitting an application for permission to do additional practice after class, was blocked by his professor.

“But if I don’t practice, how am I supposed to develop my magical ability and contribute to Brinita society? Does that make any sense?”

Helio’s homeroom professor seemed never to have expected this quiet boy to snap back so boldly. Wiping the sweat streaming down his face with the sleeve of his lab coat, he only repeated, “I’m sorry, I’ll look into it.” Helio’s permission request moved from the homeroom professor to the dean, and from the dean to the president.

In the end, Helio once again came face-to-face with Dolores Madden.

“Boy, I respect your scholarly zeal.”

President Madden spoke solemnly.

“But Certanon Academy considers safety its first principle. For common attributes, the types of accidents that can occur are, to an extent, predictable, so we can proceed with bolder research. But your case is different.”

“But……”

“We don’t know how far your potential extends, or what dangerous things you might be able to do. If you make a mistake, the faculty might not even be able to contain what you cause.”

Helio could not bring himself to refute that. Even what had happened to him already showed how dangerous this magic was.

“Then… does that mean I can’t train my magic……?”

Helio muttered in a slightly cowed voice. Seeing him like that, President Madden’s expression shifted slightly. Strict and rigid as she was, she had a weakness for cute and motivated new students, and also for cadets with tremendous potential.

“We’ll do our best to create opportunities for a cadet like you to commune with their own magic.”

And the president’s “best” meant a few laboratory mice and rabbits.

Helio had no intention of being satisfied with low-intelligence animals—making them pretend not to see food, or making them enter a certain place. He had to unravel the secret of his magic attribute.

The boy even requested something at least a little more mentally complex to burrow into—something like a dog—but it was rejected. The reason was that the boy might control the dog and make it bite passersby.

“How are rabbits and mice any different from a dog?”

It was ridiculous, but that was the policy.

“I think dealing with a person would be best.”

“No.”

“Besides my practice partner, two other people can watch me. My magic can only be cast if I make skin contact with the target. If the monitors keep their distance and think I’m about to do something, they can knock me out……”

“Regrettably, Cadet. That’s a nonsensical request.”

President Madden brushed aside Helio’s pleading.

“Considering that your magic might have a permanent effect on your ‘partner,’ it’s still too early.”

“Still? But when I become an upperclassman, you’ll say it’s not allowed because my magic will be stronger and larger, won’t you?”

At Helio’s words, which struck as if to corner her, the president snorted.

“Not at all. By then, you will have completed the entire course ‘<Handling Dangerous Magic>,’ so some consideration may be possible.”

Helio stared after President Madden as she walked away, showing him her back, his face dazed.

His roommate Dennis advised him not to waste his energy on practice that didn’t even count toward grades, and to focus on preparing for midterms first. But Helio’s stubborn pride was blazing inside. And he wanted to undo the Seal as soon as possible, too.

If it was possible.

To find clues, Helio continued to dig through documents about the conditions for magic. But even if he read every book in the Academy library, the only cases where an already-cast spell could be undone were under three conditions: the caster’s death, the caster voluntarily undoing it, or neutralization by a counter-attribute spell.

‘Did he really say that just to trick me?’

But even so, verifying that would also require Helio’s magic to bloom enough.

For several days, Helio fought fiercely with the president, with books, and with his own inner self. So sharp every moment that even close friends were afraid to touch him, Helio finally made a decision.

The academy administrative office worker felt uneasy at the sight of Helio approaching while burning with a fighting spirit like a young commander marching off to war. The boy held out a letter envelope to the worker.

“Please deliver it as fast as possible.”

“W-well. We use couriers from the Royal Post Office, so that kind of request……”

“Thank you.”

Without listening, Helio strode back toward the main building.

What the boy had written was a letter asking for counsel. At the end of the letter was a sentence requesting, at all costs, that the recipient visit the Academy in the near future. The addressee sent back a reply saying he would gladly do so.

Less than thirty minutes after that reply reached the boy’s hands, the letter’s recipient arrived.

As soon as Helio heard that he had arrived, he ran to the reception room. He steadied his breath while walking the corridor, but it wasn’t easy to hide his panting.

The boy opened the door.

“Hi.”

A cool, low voice came. It was a greeting given without even looking this way.

A handsome man with tanned skin, wearing a dark green coat of light fabric, beckoned.

“Sit.”

Helio moved with a stiff, expressionless face. Ashton smiled faintly.

“When I received your letter, I was surprised, little friend. To be honest, I didn’t expect it. That you, of all people, would ask me for help.”

But Helio stopped not at the chair set across from Ashton, but behind the man’s back. Ashton looked up at Helio with a slightly puzzled expression.

Helio’s gaze brushed Ashton’s hand. As always, the man was bare-handed.

The boy abruptly seized his hand.

In that instant, sparks flared.

Not real flames. Ashton’s mind repelled Helio.

Even though their contact was only for a blink, the clash that erupted between their minds was fierce.

Helio drove into Ashton’s mind. Reading a human was nothing like reading a mouse or rabbit. In a place where desire and reason, consciousness and unconsciousness were tangled in disorder, pulling out the information he wanted was no easy task. It was like being dropped into an unknown alleyway in the dead of night.

And unfortunately for Helio, Ashton Bryant was someone with circumstances far more complex than an ordinary person.

The boy collapsed as if electrocuted. Ashton sat there as if nothing had happened, watching Helio with a subtle smile on his lips. His expression was a mix of mild surprise, amusement, and pleasure.

“Hah… huff.”

“Did you read something?”

One fortunate thing was that what Helio wanted to read from him was clear. He burrowed in at the fastest speed he could, searching for the answer to that question.

He wanted to know whether, if he became able to handle his own attribute well enough to surpass Ashton, he could undo the Seal placed on him. Right before being flung back, he had barely been able to catch a thread at his fingertips.

Ashton, at least regarding that matter, did not lie.

If Helio grew enough, he could undo the Seal.

“How is that possible?”

“Which part? I don’t know what you read.”

Helio, panting, staggered to his feet.

“I kept looking for the conditions to magic. I searched the entire library to see if there were any records, even from long ago—back when mages first appeared. But there wasn’t even a single exceptional case beyond the three conditions in the textbooks.”

“Is that so?”

“Are you going to say this is also something beyond school and books?”

At the aggressive tone, Ashton only shrugged.

“What are the three conditions for undoing magic?”

“Are you kidding me? The caster’s death, the caster undoing it voluntarily, neutralization by a counter-attribute spell.”

“You do study hard. But your speed of honing magic is slow.”

Helio flinched.

“You’re not digging in properly. Seems there are some constraints on choosing practice targets because this is a damned educational institution, huh?”

Helio’s expression turned savage in an instant. With a displeased face, he snapped back.

“I never asked you to evaluate me.”

“Well, you should be grateful I’m evaluating you. Let’s see—at this rate, you can’t stop me, not at all. By February, I’ll have achieved my goal and already left Reedblon. Ah, don’t worry. Like I told you before, Sabina D’Vialis won’t even know she cooperated with me……”

“Don’t deceive my master!”

“What?”

Ashton laughed as if it were absurd. Legs crossed and fingers interlaced, he looked up at Helio. The boy’s fingertips went cold.

“Deceive? Isn’t that what you’re doing? Did you tell your master that the King’s brother has been sneaking in and out of the Academy reception room like a rat?”

Helio panicked.

“That’s……. No, how did you find out? Does my master know too?”

Anxious, the boy asked. Ashton didn’t answer.

“And I told you. I’m not harming her.”

Helio shook his head. Those words were hollow.