Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Whoosh.
The afternoon wind circled through the middle of the training grounds.
My mind was blank.
It felt as though my mind were somewhere else.
At that moment, I was staring blankly at a single speck of dust in the air with unfocused eyes.
“……Cassian?”
Swoosh.
At Professor Iris’s cautious, quiet call, I abruptly came to my senses.
“Ah, yes. Sorry.”
I unconsciously swallowed hard.
A woman so dazzlingly beautiful that I could feel her breath from this close was looking at me with nothing but concern in her eyes, and yet my mind was elsewhere.
Hmm.
Actually, there was good reason.
The unpleasant issue that had struck my mind this time was important enough to shake my very existence far more than I could have imagined.
‘There has been an unprecedented intrusion into my memories.’
What could be more unsettling and skin-crawling than this?
Until now, I had thought I had simply forgotten the contents of the novel from my past life and happened to remember them by chance. But that wasn’t it.
It felt as though some unknown, fucked-up bastard was picking out only the information I needed with tweezers and jamming it straight into the middle of my brain.
‘If this keeps up, I might even……’
What if all my memories from my past life had been artificially pieced together by someone, nothing more than distorted illusions?
This might sound like I’m taking things way too far.
Knowing that rationally didn’t make the anxiety go away.
That absurdly excessive anxiety was running up my spine and sharpening every nerve in my body.
“Is something wrong?”
Professor Iris tilted her head slightly as she asked.
Her red eyes beyond her glasses were meticulously examining my complexion.
For a moment.
An impulsive thought suddenly surged up: What if I told this magical genius everything?
If she was a scholar who could see through the essence of mana and the principles governing the world, wouldn’t she be able to infer the identity of this abnormal interference in my mind to some extent?
But.
I soon had to bite down and swallow the desire that had risen to the tip of my tongue.
‘I’m not sure this is something I can just recklessly open up about without a plan.’
“No. Nothing’s wrong.”
“……I see, then.”
Professor Iris’s small hand carefully came to rest against my chest.
Her body heat seeped through my thin shirt.
The fluttering excitement that would normally have shot through me reflexively didn’t rise even a gram today.
My mind was burning so blackly that there wasn’t even room for my hormones to be released.
“What magic are we using today? ……Professor?”
Professor Iris’s answer did not come for quite some time.
When I tilted my head slightly in puzzlement, I saw that she had stopped probing my mana and was simply looking up at me.
Her red eyes stared straight into mine, as if they could dissect every secret thought I had.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
Just as I flinched in puzzlement.
Swoosh.
Professor Iris suddenly lifted her other hand and gently placed it against my cheek.
“……?”
Huh?
What is this?
Her soft palm lightly cupped my jaw and cheek.
Her distinctive scent tickled the tip of my nose as the distance between us narrowed, but all I could do in my fluster was blink.
Just as I was wondering how I should respond, Professor Iris spoke to me.
“Let’s take the day off today.”
“……Pardon?”
This is bad.
“Why? Do you dislike resting? I didn’t know you were this interested in magic.”
“No, it’s not that.”
As her student, I had brazenly demanded that she let me cast exactly three spells in less than an hour and then run away.
From my perspective, being told that I could rest without even doing that much made me feel terribly guilty.
The moment I let out a hollow laugh and met her gaze,
I became completely tongue-tied.
Only then did I properly take in her eyes.
‘……They’re filled with worry.’
The eyes of the great mage Iris von Evergarden were nothing like those of the research-obsessed woman I had grown sick of seeing.
They belonged to someone who was fretting helplessly with every fiber of her being as she watched me, unable to hide her emotions at all.
“I’m not a minor, you know.”
Feeling awkward, I lightly grasped the wrist of the hand cupping my cheek.
“Aren’t you looking at me too much like a child?”
“……Is that so?”
Her eyes really did seem overflowing with maternal affection.
Of course, maternal affection wasn’t necessarily directed only at children.
But I wasn’t in the mood to betray my teacher today, so I decided to quietly assume she was simply worrying about me like some immature child.
I really didn’t have the energy to make my head hurt any more.
Just then.
“By any chance……”
Professor Iris’s lips parted.
“Am I not someone you can rely on?”
At that moment.
For the first time, I caught a deep, unmistakable gloom in Professor Iris’s expression.
A strange heaviness seemed to settle in one corner of my heart.
Only then did I realize it.
‘Ah.’
Her concern, her gloom, and all those tender signals she had been sending me.
I had been missing every single one of them.
“No. It’s because I can rely on you that I dove straight behind your back when facing that old cardinal geezer.”
“…….”
Her red eyes trembled faintly.
I took a breath and added, pressing all the sincerity I could into my words.
“If I ever have to tell someone about my situation again, you’ll probably be the first person I tell, without a doubt.”
“……Really?”
A faint, relieved breath escaped between her lips.
Something.
Maybe it was because she was laying her emotions bare so transparently, completely disarmed like this.
That shitty feeling of being so overwhelmed by the noise inside me that nothing in the world had been visible was instantly pushed into the background.
Only the expression of the person in front of me filled my entire field of vision.
‘It’s something I’ve thought dozens of times, if only to myself.’
Seriously.
This woman really was insanely beautiful.
“Yes. If it’s something I’m agonizing over alone right now, I think I’d ask you before even my father, Professor.”
The moment I finished speaking.
Professor Iris’s stiff lips gently curved upward into a soft smile.
A smile filled with relief, as if she had finally set down a heavy burden.
Seeing her depressed expression turn into a radiant smile right in front of me, my heart began pounding and thrashing wildly of its own accord.
I’m excited.
What terrible timing.
“I see.”
Professor Iris lightly stroked my skin with the thumb of the hand cupping my cheek.
“If you ever feel like talking, any time is fine, but you have to tell me.”
It was a thoroughly private and tender admonition, with formal and informal speech precariously mixed together.
“Yes.”
I nodded as if entranced.
Only then did Professor Iris carefully withdraw both hands from my cheek and chest.
The warmth leaving my skin brought a strange pang of regret, but the awful mass of anxiety weighing down my mind felt as though more than half of it had been chipped away by that conversation alone.
“Then.”
She brushed down the sleeves she had rolled up and returned to her usual calm voice.
“Let’s really call it a day. If you force mana up in your current condition, something even worse than yesterday’s disaster might happen.”
Professor Iris pushed up her glasses and smiled sweetly.
“So, what will you do now? Are you going home or returning to your private laboratory?”
I thought about it for a moment.
If I returned to the laboratory now, Lily would welcome me with her tail wagging, but the moment she saw my sickly complexion, she would obviously fuss over me and try to nurse me in every way imaginable.
But if I went home, I wasn’t sure I could bear Old Man Alfred’s oppressive gaze.
“I don’t know. I don’t really have anywhere to go.”
When I shrugged, Professor Iris lightly tilted her head and suggested,
“Then shall we go to my laboratory?”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve cleared my entire schedule today because of you anyway. Go there, have a warm cup of tea, and clear your head a little. I won’t ask you anything.”
I won’t ask you anything.
Could there be a better offer for me right now?
I gave a small chuckle and nodded.
“That sounds good. Are you going to brew the tea yourself, Professor?”
“How cheeky. If a guest sits quietly, of course the host should serve them.”
“Haha. Then I’ll take you up on that and rest to my heart’s content.”
I’ve been drinking a lot of tea today.
I’m going to fill my belly with water, seriously.
* * *
Clatter.
The Magic Department building, Professor Iris’s private laboratory.
A steaming teacup was placed in front of me as I sat sunk deep into the sofa.
Professor Iris gracefully sat down across from me and took hold of the black tea she had prepared for herself.
“Drink it. It’s chamomile mixed with lavender, and it works well when your thoughts are tangled and your nerves are on edge.”
“Thank you.”
I gripped the handle of the teacup, felt its warmth spread across my palm, and took a sip.
A fragrant floral scent swirled around my mouth and warmed me all the way down to my stomach.
Strangely enough, I could feel the tension in the muscles weighing down my shoulders slowly melt away.
“…….”
“…….”
Inside the laboratory, all that drifted through the silence was the sound of branches outside scraping against the window as they swayed in the wind, along with the occasional friction of us setting down our teacups.
She had truly kept her promise to the letter.
What had happened, and why my complexion had gone so pale.
Without asking a single question, she simply drank her tea in silence, taking care to let me fully enjoy the tranquility of the space.
I stole a glance at Professor Iris over my teacup.
She reached out and pulled a book from within arm’s reach, setting it down in front of herself.
Professor Iris quietly turned the pages and lifted her teacup with her other hand to ask,
“How is the tea?”
“Good, as always.”
I leaned my head against the back of the sofa and answered with a languid smile.
“Maybe because you brewed it, Professor.”
“The fact that you have enough energy to say pointless things suggests you’re feeling better.”
She chided me while casting a sidelong glance over the top of her book, but
the corners of her eyes crinkling faintly beyond her glasses were filled with an unmistakable, tender relief.