Chapter 36
‘I will never forgive you!!’
Whenever April hated Helene, she seemed less like a precocious child and more like any other girl her age.
Even if she could read ancient tomes written in a language scholars themselves could not understand…
Even if she cried less than her older sister Liriana…
Even if she was calmer than Jayna…
April was still only ten years old.
Her long-built-up anger, sadness, and loneliness finally began to erupt.
Having never been in a proper physical fight before, April shoved Helene with all her might.
She wanted, in some way—any way—to vent her frustration on Helene.
Helene knew April was angry, but she never imagined the girl would charge at her so recklessly.
April shoved her again, harder this time, and Helene stumbled backward into a bookcase.
The bookcase struck the wall, rebounded, and began to tip toward both Helene and April.
In the end, the bookcase crashed down behind Helene.
Her back hurt from the impact, but it could have been worse.
Before the bookcase fully fell, Helene had managed to pull April’s small body into her arms, shielding her from harm.
Dust billowed into the air from the fallen books, scattering in all directions.
While Helene coughed violently, April remained completely unfazed.
“L–Let go of me!!”
April, still in Helene’s arms, kicked and squirmed to break free.
Helene shouted, alarmed that the girl might crash into the fallen bookcase if she struggled too much.
“D–Don’t move like that, it’s dangerous!”
“L–Let! Me! Go!”
April jerked her head upward, desperate to escape.
“Ow!”
Unfortunately, her head smacked straight into Helene’s nose.
The pain was so sharp Helene saw stars. She reached up and gingerly touched her nose.
A damp liquid trickled down.
“Blood…!!”
Only when April saw the nosebleed did she stop struggling.
Then she quickly flattened herself against the floor—mostly to avoid getting any blood on her own clothes.
Helene slowly straightened up and made enough space for April to crawl free.
“…April, now! Go!”
Before she had even finished speaking, April scrambled out on all fours.
Without hesitation, April began pulling books off the shelf to lighten its weight.
As the load decreased, Helene was able to lift the bookcase and set it back upright.
“This…”
Even if Helene was the person April hated most in the world, seeing her covered in dust and bleeding from the nose stirred a flicker of pity.
April handed her a pale pink handkerchief.
Helene used it to wipe her nose and glanced in the mirror.
Her hair was a wild mess, and her face was smeared with dust.
Not even her exceptional beauty could salvage such a wretched, pitiful appearance.
She noticed April watching her reflection in the mirror.
“…Pfft… Puhahaha!!”
It wasn’t just her disheveled state—her expression was equally ridiculous.
April tried to hold it in, but she had never seen Helene look so pathetic. In the end, she burst out laughing.
‘She really must hate me…’
The laugh was so pure and bright it hardly sounded like spite.
Not exactly revenge, but Helene plugged her nostrils completely with April’s pink handkerchief.
“…Feeling any better now?”
“…O–Of course not.”
April turned her head away, pouting again.
But at the corners of her tightly pressed lips, a faint smile lingered.
Helene glanced around at the wreckage of the room.
The window was shattered, and the floor was littered with ancient tomes April had thrown.
This was Helene’s first time in April’s room.
For a ten-year-old’s space, it had none of the usual charm—only books, packed wall to wall.
Helene picked up one of the tomes and opened it.
The pages were filled with tiny, black characters.
Written in ancient script, they were nearly impossible for Helene’s limited knowledge to decipher.
“You can really read this?”
“…Yeah.”
Helene squinted at the page, trying to make sense of it, but she couldn’t manage a single line.
“…April, you’re a real genius.”
“…I–It’s just… I don’t have much else to do.”
A faint blush crept onto April’s cheeks.
They say even a whale will dance when praised—and apparently, so would April.
And Helene meant it sincerely.
Liriana and Jayna’s claims that April was a genius weren’t just sisterly bias.
To think someone with such talent had been turned into a reclusive shut-in, unable to show her abilities…
Helene truly had been in the wrong.
“…But isn’t this a magic-related book?”
Even without knowing much ancient script, Helene could recognize the word “magic.”
And then—
From outside the shattered window, a sudden gust of wind blew fiercely.
Pages of a tome lying on the floor turned on their own.
Helene’s long hair whipped upward, and April’s too, both of them struggling to keep their eyes open in the wind.
Through the window, a silver eagle swooped in.
It was the same silver eagle Helene had seen before entering the house.
As its talons touched the floor, a whirlwind enveloped the bird’s body, and it transformed into a beautiful man with silver hair.
‘…Elf? Fairy?’
If not for the pronounced Adam’s apple beneath his slightly thick neck—so at odds with his delicate face—one could have mistaken him for a woman.
Helene was struck by the rarity of his pale grey eyes, sensing immediately that he was no ordinary person.
Moments later, a second eagle followed, skinny and large-eyed, also transforming in a whirlwind into a gaunt, bespectacled man.
The grey eyes fixed on April.
“…Is this the fifth candidate?”
“…I can feel her magical power, so yes!”
The gaunt man pushed his glasses higher up his nose, staring intently at April’s face.
Lucael.
No one could say they truly knew him.
Even Chiwa, who had served as his aide for half a lifetime, knew little beyond the fact that Lucael was the master of the Magic Tower and powerful enough to rival the gods.
A wizard’s lifespan might exceed that of humans by a bit, but few lived beyond two hundred years.
Lucael, however, had lived for a thousand—perhaps even longer—his beauty unchanged, his power still strong enough to defy divinity.
How much longer exactly, no one knew. Unless he chose to reveal it, it would remain a mystery.
Chiwa would only say that her predecessor heard from their predecessor that Lucael was already nearing a thousand years old.
A millennium.
Perhaps even if asked directly, he could not answer—time was meaningless to him, and unlike humans, he had no reason to count it.
One morning, Lucael noticed the sun rising.
He must have witnessed hundreds of thousands of such dawns, but that day was the first time he truly became aware of it.
For days, he sat and watched the sun rise and set.
Like the sun’s cycle, all things had an end.
An immortal body—living, yet not alive—was a curse that made it impossible to set any goals.
He had never desired to become master of the Magic Tower.
Like flowers blooming in season, it had happened naturally—he created the tower, and wizards followed him blindly.
But now, Lucael decided it was time to end it.
Since time did not bind him, he would have to create his own ending.
For that, he needed to find a successor to the Magic Tower.
He searched among the tower’s mages.
The top-ranking wizards stayed to research magic, while those of middle and lower rank scattered across the world, serving as royal court mages or academy professors.
Over time, wizards grew arrogant, distancing themselves from humans and forming a closed society.
They married only among themselves, as though it were law.
Children born to such unions—so-called purebloods—possessed magic, but it was bland and unremarkable.
After examining the magical potential of every child in the tower, Lucael let out a long sigh.
He could not entrust the tower to such ordinary heirs.
He knew what he must do next—find a hybrid, a “mutant” wizard.
Long ago, some ancient wizards had chosen human lives over wizardly isolation.
Most of their descendants had no magic, but rarely, condensed magic would appear in a later generation, surpassing that of pureblood wizards.
He had to find such a mutant hybrid.
Traveling the world, he discovered five children—descendants of ancient wizards with amplified magical power.
And the red-haired girl before him now was the last.
