Chapter 80
It took quite some time for Kaon to draw the draft and for her to refine it until the formula was perfectly transcribed. The spell was extremely complicated, after all.
After several rounds of verification, once they finally obtained the correct formula, Alessia began the interpretation process in earnest.
It looks similar to teleportation, but it’s not exactly the same. It’s definitely related to movement, but…
Alessia stared at the formula that filled the sheet of paper and examined it again. A spell formula fundamentally contained a vast amount of information.
It indicated what element the magic was based on, what properties it held, the conditions required for activation, as well as the orientation, range, and duration—all of these were recorded within the formula.
The problem was that this was just the basic information; the actual expression that implemented the magic was exceedingly complex. The jumbled combination of magical symbols resembled mathematics, and the more advanced the magic, the harder the formula was to decipher.
If it’s a movement spell, then it should have coordinates, but I don’t see any. So, it’s not a movement spell?
Lost in thought, Alessia kept turning the problem over in her mind. It wasn’t arrogance—she genuinely believed she could interpret most formulas.
But the formula devised by Rishar was not only difficult to interpret, it was hard to even comprehend. It wasn’t standard at all. Should she say it was an unusual configuration? It felt like looking at a language that was similar yet different from anything she had seen before.
Letting out a sigh, Alessia finally rose from her seat to clear her head. She walked over to the window and leaned against it, gazing down at the garden. At that moment, she spotted Nia, who was running toward the castle alongside Koda, full of excitement.
Just yesterday, a letter had arrived from Ingelos. It contained permission for Nia to stay in Ferdinand. As expected, they seemed to have little interest in where Nia was living.
Now that she could officially remain in Ferdinand, Nia had been overjoyed, darting around the castle more energetically than usual.
So she knows how to smile like that.
The childlike joy on her sister’s face seemed strangely unfamiliar, and Alessia stared at it blankly. It was so different from the past, when Nia would smile while pretending not to be cautious.
It felt like she had seen Nia smile more in the past month at the castle than in the ten years they had spent in Ingelos.
And that was only natural. Children born in Ingelos learned how to wield mana before they learned how to smile. No one cared about living as ordinary humans when their lives were dedicated to becoming great magicians.
That didn’t mean that the Ingelos family was particularly flawed in terms of character; most magical families were similar in this regard.
A magician who had studied other magicians once said this: “Mana corrodes the magician.”
He had argued that it was no coincidence that those hailed as Archmages in history were all considered eccentric. He had even included detailed research on personality changes corresponding to increases in mana capacity.
His conclusion was that since power beyond human limits would eventually destroy the mind, magicians should train their bodies and maintain their mental discipline rather than obsess over magic alone.
Of course, his research met with enormous backlash within the magical community, and no follow-up studies were ever published. Whether he quit voluntarily or whether the Tower rejected his papers was unclear.
Either way, Alessia agreed with his words to some extent. She didn’t know if mana directly influenced personality, but she particularly agreed that if there was a distortion, it needed to be corrected.
“Kid! You’re gonna smash your nose if you fall like that!”
Pulled from her thoughts by the shout, Alessia turned her head. The wall blocked her view, but she could tell the voice belonged to Kaon.
Hearing the loud voice, Nia stopped in her tracks and looked up. She glanced around, searching for the source, then suddenly waved her hand wildly.
“Sis!”
Thinking she was waving at Kaon, Alessia stood still, only to realize that Nia was greeting her. The window wasn’t even open, yet somehow the girl had recognized her.
Alessia froze. Should she open the window? Should she wave back? She still hadn’t figured out how to act around Nia.
If it were a stranger, she could smile easily and get along well. But being affectionate with family was difficult. That was the Ingelos bloodline.
“Don’t you see me, kid?”
“I’m not a kid!”
Just as Nia was about to lower her hand, Kaon called out again. For a moment, Nia looked sulky, then quickly flared up and shouted back at him.
Then, with an exaggerated “Hmph!” so visible even from afar, she ran off again.
“Don’t cry if you trip! Be careful!”
“I’m not gonna trip!”
Her voice faded as she ran, cheerful once more. It was always like this—Kaon would tease, Nia would protest, but she really liked him.
Kaon often took Nia around the castle, introducing her to people, and whenever he had spare time, he played with her.
While Alessia tried to avoid encountering Nia whenever possible, Kaon never hesitated. Nia had brightened so quickly because Kaon had gone out of his way to care for her.
How can he do that?
Alessia often found Kaon Ferdinand a mystery—and now was no different. He treated Nia with the same sincerity as he had shown Alessia from the start.
Even after all the help she had received from that kindness, she still couldn’t fully understand him. It wasn’t just to impress her; Kaon knew well enough that she didn’t consider Nia very close.
I just don’t get it.
By Ingelos standards, this was a waste of effort—a meaningless expenditure of time. But Kaon behaved as though it were the most natural thing in the world. That unsettled Alessia in a strange way.
Was it because she was Alessia Ingelos? Because Ingelos blood ran through her veins, making her unable to accept goodwill completely?
That thought made her chest feel tight, and Alessia quietly opened the window. A breeze carrying the lingering chill of winter swept in at once.
She leaned out slightly, letting the cold air brush her face. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant.
“…”
As she drew in a deep breath to clear her tangled mind and turned her head, she froze. Her eyes had caught a glimpse of black hair fluttering in the wind.
Kaon Ferdinand was leaning against the window frame with one arm, gazing at her.
Their eyes met, and a playful glint shimmered in his pale gray-blue irises. She didn’t know how long he had been watching her, but it didn’t seem like a brief wait.
“Knew you’d look out eventually.”
His relaxed words were paired with a soft smile. At that moment, Alessia suddenly realized Kaon had grown.
Now eighteen, the young man’s features had sharpened, and his eyes had deepened. His refined yet elegant face remained the same, but the boyishness that once lingered was slowly giving way to something more mature.
Noticing a change she had never paid attention to before, Alessia felt a flicker of surprise. The face she saw every day suddenly seemed unfamiliar, as if she were looking at it for the first time.
In her mind, Kaon Ferdinand had hardly changed from the moment they first met at the ball. At least outwardly. For a woman who had lived each day worrying about tomorrow’s survival, there had been no time to notice such things.
A young lord who looked as though he had never known failure.
Even when her heart nearly faltered before him, Alessia had endured by looking at his face. His youthful innocence reminded her just how different their lives were.
To Alessia, kindness was foreign, and affection was a distant feeling. After a barren life, she had no room to accept a boy’s pure-hearted affection.
Moreover, Kaon Ferdinand’s feelings had been so transparent and innocent that they seemed like they would vanish at any moment. So she waited for time to pass, for that heart to disappear too, leaving her with no lingering regrets.
But now, faced with him so suddenly, Kaon Ferdinand seemed on the verge of becoming an adult. And with that, he felt capable of making her unable to treat his feelings lightly anymore.
“…What, ignoring me? My head was about to split from working on that formula, you know.”
Unaware of her thoughts, Kaon spoke in an almost exasperated tone.
Alessia kept her lips sealed, unable to find a response. His voice in her ears sounded noticeably deeper than before—and it would only grow deeper still. Time was moving even in this very moment.
Clack.
Alessia finally closed the window without answering. Kaon said something in a bewildered tone, but she pretended not to hear.
For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to look at Kaon Ferdinand straight in the eye right now.
Alessia closed her eyes and took slow, steady breaths. As darkness fell over the world, she focused on drawing the mana pooled in her heart.
Unlike in her childhood, when she had felt nothing, a peculiar heat began deep inside and slowly spread through her veins, inching its way across her body.
The warmth flowed sluggishly with her blood. Since the mana she could sense was as scarce as dew drops on a leaf, the flow could never be fast.
Still, Alessia did not give up, pouring every bit of concentration into it. The warmth blooming faintly along every path the painstakingly gathered mana touched made her skin subtly tingle.
She didn’t know how much time had passed. The chain of mana beads strung together in a fragile thread heated her entire body until finally, when the faint warmth reached her fingertips and toes, she pushed the mana out of her body.
