Chapter 167: The Naive Flamme
The afternoon sun was warm, and the earthy smell of the forest was pleasant in the air. Or perhaps it was just because she had been praised.
She sat by the crater she had made with her light spear, her chest heaving slightly from the exertion, a smile on her face. Serie's rare and direct compliment had left her feeling a little light-headed. It was the first time she had ever praised her like that.
Her other teacher, Rhodes, was always gentle with his praise. But Serie... she was strict, almost to a fault.
And yet, she didn't mind. She, too, wanted to be strong, stronger than all the demons. She wanted to kill them all.
But since he had intervened, everything had changed. Even Serie had become gentler, less demanding. She didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but she did know that she was happy now. And that was enough.
She looked over at him and saw that he was now walking towards Serie. They stood together, and in the sunlight, they looked so natural, so in sync, as if they had been standing like that for a thousand years. His gentle smile, and the unconscious warmth in her voice when she spoke to him... it stirred a strange and new emotion in her own heart.
What was their relationship? Why were they so close?
It was... enviable.
She didn't know what she was envious of. Their closeness? Or the fact that she could be so close to him? She didn't know.
She waved at them, and he waved back with an encouraging smile. Serie just gave a slight nod, but the look in her eyes was enough to make her feel a sense of contentment.
"To watch her grow... it is, in itself, a miracle far greater than magic."
His words floated to her, and a warmth spread through her chest. She was growing, and at a speed that even she found surprising. Now that she was no longer driven by hatred, even learning magic had become easier, and things that had once been incomprehensible were now clear as day.
Was it his doing? Hearing his words, her earlier suspicion was confirmed. And the result... was that she now felt an even greater dependence on him. If only... if only she could be like Serie...
Time passed in a flurry of study. The little girl who had once been so lost and filled with hate was now a young woman, with the slender grace of her age. Her mana was growing deeper every day, and in her every move, there was the confidence of a seasoned mage. She had even begun to experiment, to add her own understanding to the spells she had been taught, to create a magic of her own, just as he had.
Serie did not stop her.
After the end of the Age of Myth, the development of magic had shifted, away from large-scale destruction. The barrier to creating new spells was now much lower. She had already heard of many strange and new kinds of magic. In the Age of Myth, she would have dismissed them as useless. A spell that cannot kill an enemy is not a good spell. But now, under his influence, her own views had begun to change. In the past thousand years, she, herself, had created many different spells. And the girl's own initiative... it was exactly what she had wanted to see.
But what she had not expected was that with age, a new restlessness had begun to stir in the girl's heart.
She was no longer content to just learn magic.
Her gaze now fell more and more on her two teachers.
Especially him. He was the only man she had ever known.
He was like an endless book of magic. He knew things that even Serie did not. Not just magic, but history, and the different races, and the stories of the god-slayer and the warrior-monk, Kraft, stories that Serie had never told her.
His patience, his gentleness... it was so different from her other teacher's strictness, and she couldn't help but want to be closer to him. And then closer still.
And that feeling of closeness, of affection, had, without her realizing it, begun to ferment.
When she saw them talking in low voices, a shared glance passing between them, or when Serie would so naturally take something from his hand, a feeling of being left out, of being an outsider, would wash over her. She didn't understand what it was. She just knew that the way he looked at her other teacher... it was more complex, a bond that she could not enter. As if they had been together for a long, long time.
It made her a little envious. She longed for more of his attention, to be someone like Serie to him.
The thought shocked her. And it made her wonder... who was he, really? He never cast any powerful spells, just demonstrated the basic techniques. Serie was the renowned magical master; her strength was undeniable. But him... what was his true power? Why would someone as proud as Serie allow a seemingly ordinary human to stand with her as an equal, to even defer to him at times?
A bold, almost absurd, thought began to grow in her mind, a weed that she could not seem to root out: Could he... be the legendary god-slayer who had ended the Age of Myth a thousand years ago... Lord Rhodes?
But every time the thought came to her, she would push it away. It was insane. A legend, a hero, a figure of myth... how could he be standing right in front of her, a gentle older brother, patiently teaching her magic? And the timeline... it didn't add up. A human could not live for a thousand years. It had to be a foolish, impossible thought. His presence, his aura, it was just so... special. That had to be it.
She tried to convince herself, to bury the incredible suspicion deep in her heart. But a seed of doubt, once planted, is difficult to remove.
She began to watch him more closely, to observe his every word, his every move, trying to find a clue, and at the same time, afraid of what she might find.
And in that state of a complex and confusing doubt, the days passed. She studied even harder, as if to fill the emptiness in her heart with more and more magic.
Until one calm, peaceful afternoon was shattered.
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