Shhhh―

A cool spring breeze still carrying the mischief of winter passed through, and soft plum blossom petals scattered in its wake. The modest red plum tree, the only thing holding color in an otherwise entirely green rear garden, was a sight of pure beauty.

Seated at the table set with a clear view of the plum tree, Bellus paid little attention to the food being laid out before her and focused only on drinking in the scene.

Plum blossoms, was it.

She thought she had heard something like that amid Lora’s chatter earlier.

Taking in the buds packed densely along the branches, Bellus thought of someone she missed from memory.

There had been a time, someone had said, when even Attica had been covered in flowers. Milles, the training facility instructor and the only teacher Bellus had ever trusted and followed, had said so on the day they first met, her face drifting through a hazy, distant past.

‘You said you’re from the Kinji district? You really are a country bumpkin, aren’t you? I’m from Kinji too.’

Over the voice that had laughed with a silly joke, her face surfaced vividly, full of mischief. When she rambled on with her tongue twisted from too much drink, she always repeated the same thing.

‘Back then in Kinji, there were acacia flowers everywhere. I stuck my face in to try and get a taste of the honey, and one little bastard bee, decided I was stealing its food and threw a fit, and of all places it had to sting me right on the lip.’

Never seeming to tire of the same story repeated every time, Bellus had listened carefully each time, and sometimes imagined that acacia flower blooming in full across the desolate Kinji she had lived in.

Of course it was a pointless thing to do.

She didn’t have the ability to imagine something she had never seen.

“The wind is still cold. Make sure you stay bundled up so you don’t catch a chill.”

Lora had disappeared at some point and seemed to have come back with a blanket.

‘…This is soft too.’

Everything she encountered here was delicate and soft without exception, and she never quite knew how to handle any of it. She had the feeling that if she handled things roughly, the way she always did, they would break apart at any moment.

Perhaps it was because she could tell the thick velvet blanket that wrapped around her skin like flowing water was something far too fine for the likes of her. Her body was one that laughed off something as trivial as a cold, yet she sat still and let Lora fuss over her, tucking the blanket around her with careful hands.

Her eyes remained fixed on the magnificent plum tree the entire time.

That day, Bellus spent a long while drinking in the sight of the red plum blossoms, as though pressing them into memory.

Warming her fingertips, gone cool in the light breeze, by turning a warm teacup in her hands.

To hold this moment, which might be her last, for as long as she could.

* * *

“Ha…”

Yantis exhaled an irritated sigh and yanked his tie loose. The full suit, vest and all, felt cumbersome.

He had arrived here and been on the move ever since, without a moment’s sleep.

Not that deep fatigue could do much to diminish his natural beauty. In the dim space, an unfairly handsome face caught glimpses of light from the single soft amber lamp burning in the corner.

“How was the film, sir?”

William, standing at his side to help him change, asked the question, and Yantis, already having shed his vest, answered while undoing the stifling buttons of his fitted shirt.

“Hmm. It seemed to consume quite a lot of mana. I kept thinking, where exactly does all the mana needed to run that projector come from?”

Yantis furrowed his brow in distaste and clicked his tongue.

A world that might as well have been built from mana. In such a world, mana was power itself, the very source of energy. Yantis thought of how many cruel truths were hidden within that single sentence and smiled a cynical smile.

His sudden trip down to the Marshall district and his attendance at the laughable “first film screening” had all been because of those cruel truths.

An era in which mana was progress itself.

But cruelly, the gods had not granted humanity an abundance of mana, and corrupt humans were easily seduced by that tempting power.

Humanity explored mana and consumed it greedily. And eventually, they went so far as to create a class system based on the amount of mana a person possessed.

‘Genius, Medius, and Impar.’

Those who possessed mana superior to others called themselves “Genius,” and they became the symbol of the ruling class that governed the world.

The Geniuses called those with ordinary mana “Medius” and placed them beneath their feet, and the Medius were primarily assigned the role of serving the ruling class in close proximity.

And the last, lowest class: “Impar.”

Those with almost no mana were called Impar, and their very existence was met with oppression and contempt.

A society in which class was determined by the mana one was born with was merciless without exception. The ruling class, who championed the “logic of mana” that declared everything was determined by mana, celebrated and congratulated themselves as they dreamed of their perfect world.

But before long, they were met with an unforeseen tragedy.

Descendants born without inheriting their mana.

And that meant the end of their power.

What had the panicked Geniuses chosen to do?

A society that abolished class and shared mana equally, living in harmony? Hardly. Those who had been struggling not to lose their grip on power ultimately chose to plunder the mana of others.

The period when humans were no longer human, merciless and brutal, is recorded in history books as the “Dark Age of Mana.”

And five hundred years ago, when the youngest imperial prince, “Arena Attica,” who had thoroughly condemned the logic of mana, ascended to the throne through rebellion, the act of plundering another’s mana was strictly prohibited within the Attica Empire.

The vicious Geniuses were brought to the guillotine, and the Medius and Impar wept and called out to the gods in gratitude for the peace they had reclaimed.

Yet the rule of the Attica imperial family, which had seemed as though it would last forever, entered a new phase after roughly four hundred years.

A new revolution. The establishment of a chancellor system alongside the abolition of the imperial family.

No one had anticipated that the day believed to be the beginning of a more equal society than any before it would become the start of a true tragedy.

“I’m heading straight to the black market. I’d like the trail to run a little longer this time.”

No matter how rampant buying and selling mana had become, it was still unambiguously illegal. The ones who set up shop haphazardly across black markets and vanished were extraordinarily quick on their feet.

‘Emperor Arena would leap out of his grave if he knew.’

He might have lived a somewhat different life if he had known the peace he had spent half his life building would end this emptily. Yantis pushed the pointless thought away with a sigh and swung his coat over his shoulders.

“Ah, Lord Yantis. A message came from the main estate this morning.”

“…From the main estate?”

One eyebrow lifted slightly in puzzlement, then settled back down. He had just remembered. The black-haired woman he had left behind at the estate.

‘She’s awake, then?’

Thinking of her as he fastened his coat, her image came to him easily. Even that ferocious gleam in her eyes right before she had passed out, blazing with fury.

“Is the estate in one piece?”

“…Pardon?”

William tilted his head at Yantis’s question, which carried a faint trace of amusement. But what could puzzling over it tell him? Yantis, realizing his question had left out quite a lot, continued.

“Ah. She must have woken up looking for me right away, so I was wondering if anything had happened.”

“Ah… yes.”

An awkward reply followed Yantis’s casual question. Something about it sounded almost like a pained sigh, and Yantis’s puzzled gaze turned toward William.

But William had no room to spare for clearing up his confusion.

With good reason. He was faced with the reality of having to deliver the news that “the guest did not look for Lord Yantis at all” to a man who believed with absolute certainty that the woman would be searching for him the moment she woke up, and that reality struck William as unbearably cruel.

So William resolved to soften the blow to his master as much as possible, choosing his words in the most roundabout way he could manage.

“Well, Lora says she is doing her utmost to ensure that your absence is not felt at all.”

“Is that so…?”

One of Yantis’s eyebrows crept up as he watched William flounder helplessly. He genuinely could not understand why his aide was suddenly acting this way. On top of that, there was something in William’s eyes that looked very much like pity, and Yantis cleared his throat for no particular reason before speaking.

“Ahem. So what did she spend the whole day doing?”

“Oh! Well, first thing after waking up she had a meal in the rear garden, and then she read the newspaper in the drawing room. Lora mentioned she seems to have a particular fondness for flowers and desserts, and the way she pretends she doesn’t is quite ador…”

Yantis let William’s words, flowing out like someone who had finally found a subject he was confident in, wash past him as he thought to himself.

‘She’s been perfectly well-behaved…?’

Thinking of those murderous black eyes pouring out killing intent right up until she lost consciousness, he had half expected her to wake up and overturn everything in sight. That was precisely why he had asked Lora repeatedly to let him know the moment she woke up.

If the trail of the mana trafficking ring he had been doggedly tracking for nearly half a year hadn’t surfaced, he wouldn’t have left the estate so abruptly.

Yantis had no idea that it was his own absence that had allowed Bellus to be as docile as a cat blissed out on catnip, and he clicked his tongue in mild regret.

‘Then again, that woman might turn on a dime and cause trouble at any moment.’

Thinking about it that way, he suddenly felt he shouldn’t leave the estate empty for too long.

Yantis finished pulling on his soft leather gloves and moved with an uncharacteristic urgency.

The way his footsteps seemed to melt into the darkness had a lightness to them that was distinctly unlike his usual self, and that was no mere imagining.