Chapter 19
Silveryn quietly sank into thought. While she couldn't draw a definitive conclusion yet, there was something she strongly suspected.
She briefly recalled a memory from long ago.
There was no point in pressing Damian. Even if she asked why his mana recovery speed was so good, Damian would have nothing to say. He knew nothing about magic.
Silveryn put her hands behind her back and caressed one of the rings on her finger. It was one of the highest-level artifacts she owned.
Using the artifact, she could dig into Damian's past from within him.
However, if she used force to uncover dark places, her relationship with Damian would be irreparably damaged.
And Damian might close his heart and never come out of his cave again.
Now is not the time.
Silveryn removed her hand from the ring.
"Um, Teacher?"
Damian looked worried as he glanced at the maid who was sitting down. The maid was clutching her chest and breathing heavily.
"Is she... alright?"
He had no idea that he was the cause of it.
"No, she'll have trouble walking on her own. I'm going to call someone now, so wait."
Damian seemed to have no concept of magical pressure at all. It wasn't difficult, so it was something she could teach him later.
Silveryn took out a Stitch. She needed to send someone to take the maid away.
"I'll do it. There's no need to go to the trouble."
Damian ran to the maid, sat down, and turned his back to her.
The maid blushed and waved her hands in protest but reluctantly leaned on his back, unable to resist Damian's insistence.
Damian easily lifted the maid on his back and looked at Silveryn as if asking when they should go.
Not long ago, when they started training, he had suffered from muscle pain and needed the maid's support, but now, after finishing all the training and depleting his mana, he was carrying the very same maid who had supported him.
He’s growing.
Watching this quietly, the corners of Silveryn's mouth turned up slightly.
Now that I look at it, there is some satisfaction in raising him.
***
There were garden trees lined up on both sides of the path, and at the end of the path stood a snow-white mansion.
The dozens of garden trees were maintained in exactly the same shape, showing how meticulously they were cared for. Each moment passing through the garden felt like déjà vu.
This scenery gave her the impression that the landscaping was almost obsessive.
A butler was waiting to greet them.
"It's an honor to meet you."
Despite trying to hide it, fear was evident on the butler's face as he faced the Archmage.
Even though they had directly requested Silveryn's help themselves.
"Where is the head of the Raillis family, and why is a butler coming out to greet me?"
With a face that looked about thirty years younger than the family head, she was scolding the name of the head of a great family.
Despite such blunt words, the butler, feeling intimidated, could only offer awkward excuses.
"Due to unavoidable circumstances, he had to respond to a summons from the Imperial family."
"What cowards."
"If you were inconvenienced, I sincerely apologize, Lady Silveryn."
"Has this Raillis person given up completely?"
They were sending a proxy even though it was a matter related to their only blood relative. It felt as if it was too bothersome for them to deal with directly.
"...The family head is always doing his best."
Silveryn snorted.
Even after entering the mansion following the butler's guidance, the butler continued to lead Silveryn.
"This way."
The butler stopped in front of a room door after passing through a corridor.
"The young lady is inside."
Silveryn opened the door wide and examined the room's interior.
In this room with no furniture and no windows, a girl who looked to be around ten years old was sitting alone.
She was sitting with her legs stretched out, waving her arms at the empty air.
The Raillis family, the Empire's best spirit summoner family.
This girl was Luna, a genius spirit summoner who had inherited the "Spirit King's Blessing" passed down through generations of the Raillis clan.
She was chattering as if saying something with her mouth. However, no sound was transmitted, as if a thick glass wall was blocking Luna's front.
Luna swung her hands in the empty air playfully and laughed cheerfully.
To the butler's eyes, it might seem as if Luna was playing with ghosts.
But Silveryn could sense it.
The spirits filled Luna's room.
And the spirit language Luna was shouting.
A girl who learned the language of spirits before human language.
A child who had long refused to communicate with humans.
Even Luna's parents couldn't communicate with her.
Luna's parents had requested help from Silveryn, who was affiliated with Eternia Academy, and that was how she came to the Raillis family's mansion.
This room was entirely Luna's domain.
And Silveryn walked into Luna's domain without concern. If it had been someone else, they would have been immediately attacked by the spirits.
Luna reacted to this, glaring at Silveryn irritably.
Luna shouted at the spirits to drive this person out quickly.
However, the spirits took no action. They were all terrified of Silveryn.
Luna was bewildered.
These spirits could never touch Silveryn.
Because Silveryn was an “even higher” being than Luna.
Luna became frightened. And she retreated, avoiding Silveryn.
Luna was cornered against the wall, her expression distorting.
Finally, Luna cried out someone's name with tears in her eyes.
Tap tap tap tap
A maid rushed into Luna's domain from the corridor with urgent steps.
She was a young maid who seemed to have just become an adult.
The maid hugged Luna and comforted her in the spirit language.
Silveryn watched this with great interest.
It was extremely rare to see a maid speaking the spirit language.
Silveryn said to the butler, "Does this family employ spirit summoners as servants?"
"Not at all. Sonya has never learned spirit magic at all, she's just a mere servant who has been with the Raillis family since childhood."
"How does a mere servant speak the spirit language?"
"That, even I don't know, and even Sonya herself doesn't know."
According to the butler, Sonya was the only person Luna had opened her heart to.
Luna and Sonya's relationship had lasted for nearly ten years.
Sonya said that for the first few years of caring for Luna, she couldn't see spirits or understand the spirit language. But at some point, she began to understand the spirit language and even became able to handle some low-level spirits.
This was a phenomenon Silveryn was encountering for the first time. The meeting of two talented spirit summoners. It was statistically very unlikely that Sonya's inherent talent had simply blossomed after meeting Luna.
***
After finishing dinner and bathing, Silveryn was sitting at a table on the balcony. The night was deep, and it would soon be time to sleep.
On Silveryn's table lay a letter from Luna. For the past few years, since Luna had received help from Silveryn, she had been sending annual greetings to Silveryn.
According to the news that had arrived, Luna was now on the verge of entering Eternia Academy.
Silveryn always read Luna's letters, but she had never sent a reply. To her, Luna was just one of the passing existences in her mundane daily life, and she had no intention of engaging in emotional exchanges.
Silveryn yawned and continued to flip through magic studies papers and research materials.
She never thought she would revisit a topic she had lost interest in long ago.
Cases like Sonya's had been reported to the magic academy, and formal research had been conducted for the past few years.
The reason Sonya had learned spirit magic was due to the phenomenon of “magic transfer” that occurred when maintaining a strong bond and communion with someone with magical talent for a long time.
“Magic transfer” was, simply put, when people became so attuned that even magical abilities were assimilated.
Ironically, this wasn’t a new discovery.
Ancient mage families that had maintained their lineage for hundreds of years had been utilizing “magic transfer” for a long time.
This was like an open secret among mage families.
They selected children born with the family's unique “divine power” and forced them into consanguineous marriages.
By doing so, they aimed to completely subordinate the power of the divine ability to the family and maximize the family's benefits arising from the divine power by inducing “magic transfer” through forcibly created bonds.
Of course, because it was forced, the effect was minimal. However, they considered even that much better than sharing divine power with outsiders.
Silveryn suspected that Damian's abnormal mana recovery speed was the result of “magic transfer” with someone possessing divine power.
In Sonya's case, her spirit magic had grown abnormally as well.
The spirit language was an ability that awakened through contracts with intermediate spirits. Yet she could speak the spirit language while barely handling low-level spirits.
It was similar to Damian, who had a small capacity for mana but had exceptionally good mana recovery speed.
Silveryn assumed that Damian's ability was due to “magic transfer”, and tried to gauge the depth of bond and intensity of communion required to generate such rapid recovery speed.
For Damian, who was below average in magical talent, to awaken to high-level abilities...
In the cases of “magic transfer” recorded by the academy, there wasn't a single instance where transferred magical abilities had developed to such a high grade.
It's too strange.
The more concretely Silveryn imagined it, the more her head throbbed, and she pressed her temples hard. She even felt unpleasant emotions.
Beyond just having a good bond, it had to reach the realm of pain.
The longing for each other had to be so strong that it was painful and suffocating.
Such a bond had to be maintained for nearly 9 to 10 years.
It was too unrealistic.
***
Haman's workshop.
It was where Damian had worked until a few months ago.
Usually, there would have been no one at such a late hour, but this time was different.
The workshop was full of people.
All of them were tied up with ropes on their arms and legs, filling the workshop in rows.
They were all Damian's workshop colleagues and mentors. Among them were also orphans who had lived with Damian in Loreil Hall.
They were extremely anxious.
And facing them, five thugs stood with their robes turned inside out and their faces covered with masks.
Above their heads, hundreds of ice needles as thick as human forearms were floating, aimed at the people tied with ropes.
At the center of the masked figures stood a woman with long silver hair, holding a long staff. The silver hair was somehow familiar to Damian.
And she pointed her staff at the throat of the person who had been Damian's workshop mentor.
"Where's Damian?"
He shook his head, trembling all over.
The staff was then pointed at an orphan who had lived with Damian in Loreil Hall.
He, too, shook his head, crying.
"..."
As if the woman's arm strength had failed from disappointment, the staff slowly lowered to point at the ground.
Soon after, hundreds of ice needles rushed towards the tied-up people.
Screams erupted, and the workshop instantly became a sea of blood.
The masked thugs beside her summoned spheres of fire in their hands and threw them in all directions.
The workshop was instantly engulfed in flames, and the roof collapsed.
***
And Damian awoke from his dream.