Chapter 75

Reyes left the room without even saying goodbye. The person who always acted kind, as if he existed only for Helio’s sake, was no longer there. The unpleasant side Helio had seen last time seemed fully bared today.

It wasn’t easy to calm down and think rationally again, either. The intense image tormented the boy’s emotions.

Just thinking about it made his heart pound, so Helio deliberately avoided dwelling on his meeting with Reyes that day. It felt as though the words Reyes had muttered quickly with widened eyes would echo in his ears.

His aching heart cried out that he needed Sabina.

Helio decided to give in to that instinct.

He ran straight up to his room. He had left his bag there when he came to meet Reyes, before heading to the library after school.

‘If I send a letter, the reply will probably arrive only tomorrow again.’

Helio was annoyed that Brinita still hadn’t invented a faster means of communication.

Dennis was in the room.

“Huh? Helio. What did you come back for?”

“My bag.”

Too lazy to change his outdoor shoes into slippers, Helio gestured toward Dennis.

“It’s on my desk. Can you hand it to me?”

But Dennis was strange. He glanced at Helio’s hand, then hesitated for a moment. For a second, the boy didn’t understand why.

Dennis picked up Helio’s bag and carefully handed it to him. He was being overly careful. Helio was about to say there wasn’t anything breakable inside, but then he realized that wasn’t the issue.

Dennis didn’t want to touch him.

Only then did Helio realize what it meant that he possessed the attribute ‘Ego,’ and that everyone knew it. Even if the boy had no intention of reading Dennis’s mind, from the other person’s point of view, they would be wary anyway.

His heart sank in an instant.

Sabina hadn’t been like that.

Helio still went to sit in the library, wrote a letter to Sabina saying he missed her, and even delivered it to the administrative office—but he wasn’t looking forward to the next day. Because there was a weary guest he would have to meet before Sabina.

There was ‘class.’

The next day, Ashton Bryant came to see Helio. He took off his wool coat, hung it over a chair, looked at the boy’s hands, and grinned.

“Looks like something not-so-good happened.”

Helio was wearing practice gloves.

This man always, maddeningly, hit the core.

“Enough. I’ll take them off.”

“Of course you should. With those on, you can’t read me. Ah—couldn’t read me even with them off, though?”

He teased with a bright grin. Helio, holding back his rising anger, took off the gloves and set them aside.

Neither Helio nor Ashton really knew whether the training was working properly. Ashton had built his ability by gradually, little by little, manipulating the memories of people who had no intention of defending themselves. That had been fairly easy. But Helio was climbing a cliff without a safety device. It was teaching that bordered on *buse.

Releasing information little by little—only enough for the boy to maintain hostility toward him—while also developing the boy’s ability in the process, was truly a difficult task.

‘I’m not much suited to being a teacher.’

Helio looked as if demanding Ashton hurry and offer his hand. Ashton meticulously locked away the things that mustn’t be read. It wasn’t an especially meaningful action. Helio couldn’t even approach the information Ashton had locked away “just in case.”

“Go on, then.”

He held out his hand.

Helio took a deep breath and closed his eyes as if concentrating. Ashton thought the sight was a bit funny, but because he could tell how desperate Helio was, he didn’t mock him.

Helio grabbed Ashton’s hand.

A stinging sensation raced from Helio’s fingertips up to his head. In that moment, Ashton also read Helio. The Seal was functioning well, Helio had begun to harbor doubts about Reyes Brinita, and then…….

The question Helio was currently directing into Ashton’s mind was about how he intended to “use Sabina”.

The man looked down at Helio’s face without expression.

It was the timing when a stronger motive was needed.

Ashton opened something extremely fragmentary and stimulating—an image. It was to provoke the boy. Then, the very next instant, he shut his mind.

Helio ended up letting go of Ashton’s hand to clutch his head. Whenever the connection was cut off this suddenly, the boy would complain of headaches. Dizziness and nausea, too.

He staggered a step or two. Confusion swept over him. And after that, shock.

What Ashton showed Helio was Sabina with her chest split open and bleeding. Her ribs were pried apart, and where her heart should have been was empty.

“What is this?”

Helio muttered as if he couldn’t believe it. He had held a vague thought that Ashton might harm Sabina, but he seemed never to have imagined what kind of thing could truly happen.

“What is this?”

Helio’s voice began to rise, slowly growing heated. Ashton answered calmly.

“A possible future.”

“What……!”

Helio lunged like a hunting dog. Even when he threw his weight into grabbing Ashton by the collar, Ashton didn’t budge, as if pinned to the floor.

“Explain properly!”

“You want an explanation? Then read it properly yourself.”

Ashton easily shoved Helio away. Pushed by the force, Helio dropped heavily onto the floor, then glared up at Ashton, breathing hard.

“What you saw is a single shard of possibility. If the situation turns for the worst, then yes. It’ll become exactly what you saw.”

In an even tone, the man deepened Helio’s misunderstanding. Editing the truth into a plausible lie was something he was good at. He had a knack for manipulating people’s minds without even needing magic.

Now the boy would mistakenly believe Ashton intended to rip out Sabina’s heart.

Ashton looked down at Helio.

‘Yes. Chew down your hatred. Feed the flame with it.’

Helio staggered to his feet. Ashton offered no encouraging words, only held out his hand again. Helio would now launch an aggressive casting, close to desperation, trying to learn what that image really was.

The boy seized Ashton’s hand.

There were many attempts. Ashton, mind locked shut, silently accepted the boy’s *ssaults. While placing double and triple mental locks over other information, he set yet another image before the first lock.

If Helio could open it today, Ashton would be satisfied.

The boy crashed into it until he was battered and torn. It was to the point that one wondered where such mental strength came from. Helio battering into Ashton was, metaphorically, like charging at an iron lock with a sugar stick, trying to smash it.

“Shall we stop now?”

Looking down at the panting Helio, Ashton asked dryly. Helio shook his head fiercely and lunged again.

After a full two hours of attempts, Helio finally pried open the lock.

And he collapsed with a scream.

Inside a glass case, an extracted heart was beating. Whose heart it was didn’t need to be asked. If her heart had been removed, there was no way Sabina would survive. In a trembling voice, Helio asked,

“What are you planning to do with her heart? Why on earth would you need something like a heart!”

Ashton hid who it was that “needed” her heart, and replied.

“Because she’s a time mage. The heart is the core of magic power. With it, time will be moved.”

“You lied. You said she’d be safe!”

“I do want to keep her safe, if possible.”

Ashton finally spoke the truth. But to Helio, it sounded like a lie. Smiling gently, Ashton pushed Helio into an abyss.

“But what if something unavoidable happens, just in case? Like I said, what you saw was the worst-case situation.”

Those words dropped not only Helio, but Ashton himself, into an abyss.

Helio collapsed and couldn’t stand. But Ashton stood upright where he was. He was far older than Helio, and far more used to psychological *buse.

He walked out of the parlor, step by step.

“Have a good day.”

Helio hugged his knees and cried. What should he do?

After a while, Sabina would come. When he saw her then, what expression was he supposed to wear?