“What? Is that true, Princess?”
“It is, Nicolas.”
Astrid sat at a table inside her private mansion, a teacup in hand.
Textbooks were spread out before her, though her focus had shifted entirely to the man in front of her—her personal knight, Nicolas.
She had called him here for one reason: to share the news about someone they often discussed.
Vanitas Astrea.
“Desmond Wyndale’s attempted murder, the incident at Index… His name keeps coming up, doesn’t it?” Astrid said.
Naturally, as the princess, she had access to information far beyond what the general public could ever hope to know.
Nicolas was silent. His brows furrowed in thought. His fingers drummed lightly on the table.
“If it were the old Vanitas….” he muttered. “He would’ve ran the moment he heard the inmates escaped.”
It wasn’t like him to speak so freely. This was only the second time Astrid had seen him lose his calm.
“Yet you’re telling me he chose to stay? Even after the Warden told him to leave?”
“That’s what the Warden said.”
Nicolas shook his head slowly, disbelief plain on his face.
“It doesn’t add up. Not that Vanitas.”
Astrid leaned back in her chair, studying his reaction.
She had heard the story before. About what happened six years ago when Nicolas and Vanitas were still in university.
She had known of the tragedy as a child, but it wasn’t until Nicolas told her the details that she understood it in detail.
When faced with danger, most people’s first instinct was survival. That was human nature.
But abandoning allies? That was something else entirely.
Even so….
“Maybe he changed,” she said quietly. “Six years is a long time, Nicolas.”
His head snapped up, staring at her as if she had just said something outrageous.
Change? Vanitas?
No. He could never forget what happened that day.
The memory was still fresh—every detail, every word.
——Stay down, Nicolas.
Vanitas’s voice echoed in his mind like a curse.
——You blame me for abandoning everyone, but remember this, Nicolas. It wasn’t me who killed Roxanne. It was the demons.
His words were cold. No regret. No remorse. Just a chilling indifference.
——Why were the demons able to kill her? Why was Allen left in that state? Why did Kyle lose his arm?
Nicolas clenched his fists as Vanitas’s words echoed in his mind.
——It’s because all of you were weak.
It was cruel. Unforgivable. And the worst part? It was true.
——Do not blame me. Blame yourselves for your incompetence.
But Vanitas didn’t have to say it. He didn’t have to rub salt into wounds that were already too deep.
After that day, abandonment was the least of the issues.
He severed them. His connection to them, it was all gone.
Especially Margaret.
She had feelings for Vanitas, anyone could see that. But he treated her as if she were nothing.
He left her behind that night—in the freezing cold.
Like she didn’t matter at all.
That day, Nicolas realized something.
Vanitas wasn’t human.
He was a demon. Just like the ones they faced that day.
Nicolas’s eyes lowered to the textbooks on the table.
According to the Princess, Vanitas’s lectures are pretty detailed.
He recalled Astrid mentioning it before. She even had to buy an extra notebook just for his lessons.
The thought unsettled him. The Vanitas he knew would never put in that much effort for anyone else.
“I think that’s all for today, Nicolas,” Astrid said.
“Understood, Princess.” Nicolas stood up.
Nicolas stood, gave a slight bow, and left the room.
Once he was gone, Astrid’s eyes lingered on her notes. Her gaze was distant, fingers tapping lightly on the edge of the page.
Her thoughts shifted.
Thanks to Charlotte’s performance during the practical exam, the first-year students were all in a frenzy. Everyone was now rushing to create their very first original spell.
“Sigh.…”
Astrid leaned back in her chair, a hint of frustration in her breath.
Charlotte’s Master-spell was on a level no ordinary first-year could hope to reach.
No one questioned her brilliance. Some might call it luc —managing to align the spell circuits on her first try—but Astrid knew better. Genius wasn’t luck.
And Astrid wanted to match it.
No—she wanted to surpass it.
While most of the first-years were aiming to create an Intermediate spell, Astrid had her eyes set on something far greater.
A Master–spell.
Just like Charlotte. But better.
Whenever Astrid thought she had a chance to ask Professor Vanitas for pointers, he would suddenly disappear off somewhere.
And now, to make matters worse, the Professor was hospitalized.
She could have asked the other professors, but none of them matched Vanitas’s mastery of the subject.
There was no one else she could rely on.
All she could do was wait.
To– Tok.
Just as Astrid was about to dive back into her studies, a sudden knock echoed from the door.
——Princess! Your sister is here!
“What!?”
Astrid jolted upright, her eyes wide with shock. Her sister? Here? Now?
Impossible.
Her sister was always busy. All her siblings were. They didn’t even have time to attend the party their father threw to celebrate Astrid placing second in the ESAT examination.
For her sister to visit so suddenly.… something had to be up.
Bang!
The door burst open with a loud crash.
A woman rushed in and, without hesitation, quickly wrapped Astrid in a tight embrace.
“Astrid~!”
“Aaakh…. Sister…. I can’t breathe…” Astrid wheezed, squirming in her grip.
“Hehe~” The woman finally released her, flashing a cheeky grin.
Her golden eyes sparkled with mischief.
“How have you been, my dear sister~?”
Her flowing red hair and those unmistakable golden eyes were all the proof Astrid needed. It really was her.
Her sister, Irene Barielle Aetherion, the First Princess of the Empire of Aetherion.
Her enthusiasm alone was enough of a giveaway.
Astrid rubbed her chest, letting out a tired sigh.
“Why are you here, Sister?” she asked, still catching her breath.
Her sister tilted her head, flashing an innocent smile.
“Do I need a reason to see my dear Astrid?” she teased, placing her hands on her hips.
Astrid’s eyes narrowed, unconvinced. Her sister never visited without a reason.
She always had an agenda, whether it was to pester her, drag her into something troublesome, or simply to pass the time when she was bored.
“Yes, you do,” Astrid replied bluntly, folding her arms. “You’re too busy to just drop by without a reason.”
Her sister’s grin only grew wider.
“Sharp as ever, little sister,” she said, stepping closer. “Alright, you got me. I do have a reason.”
“And that reason is?”
Her sister leaned in, her voice dropping to a playful whisper.
“I’m bored~”
Astrid’s face went blank. “.…Seriously?”
“What? I cleared my schedule for this, you know,” Irene said with a pout, swaying side to side like a child asking for attention. “Besides, isn’t it a sister’s duty to keep her little sibling company?”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have missed my party.”
“….”
Irene froze.
Her playful grin twitched ever so slightly.
“Ah~ well, you see.…” she scratched her cheek, eyes flicking to the side. “I had important business that day, Astrid. Really important. Like, ‘the fate of the world hangs in the balance’ important!”
“Okay, please leave now.”
“Nooo~!” Iren whined.
Astrid chuckled, unable to hold back her smile. Teasing Irene was too much fun.
She didn’t mean it, of course.
In truth, she was happy—genuinely happy—that Irene had come to see her.
“Oh?” Irene’s eyes landed on the books spread across the table. “What’s all this?”
“I’m studying,” Astrid replied, turning a page. “I want to stay ahead of the class before the professor returns.”
“Returns?” Irene tilted her head. “What do you mean by that? Is the professor on leave? Did the University Tower’s standards drop so low they let professors slack off now?”
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Astrid said quickly, waving her hand. “Our professor got injured recently. He’s in the hospital right now.”
“Hmm~ Is that so?” Irene hummed, picking up one of the notebooks from the pile.
Her eyes scanned the cover, and the moment she saw the name, her brows lifted in surprise.
“Vanitas Astrea? You mean that guy from the Index incident?”
“Yes, that’s him,” Astrid confirmed with a nod.
“I see….”
Irene’s gaze lingered on the name for a moment longer.
That’s when a thought crossed Astrid’s mind.
“Sister,” she said, tilting her head. “Did you know him back when you were at the University?”
Irene glanced at her, then shrugged.
“I’ve heard of him,” she admitted. “But know him? No. I was too busy preparing for my final thesis to bother flirting with freshmen.”
“Who said anything about flirting?”
“I did,” Irene grinned, shooting her a playful wink.
Astrid sighed, rubbing her temple like she’d just heard the start of a headache.
It made sense. By the time Vanitas Astrea was admitted to the Silver University Tower, Irene was already a third-year student on the borderline of graduation.
“Need any help?” Irene offered, her grin as wide as ever. “You know how amazing your big sister is at magic~”
“If you can understand it,” Astrid muttered, glancing at her notes. “The professor’s teaching methods are… unconventional.”
“Oh? Now you’ve got me curious.” Irene leaned forward, eyes sparkling with interest. “Let me see~ Let me see~”
Astrid shot her a brief, skeptical glance. There was no way her sister was here just to help her study.
But before she could say anything, Irene snatched up the notebook, flipping through the pages.
“Huh?” Irene’s eyes squinted. “What is this supposed to be?”
“Told you.”
Irene’s eyes scanned the page more intently. Her gaze landed on a particular section of the page.
“This is…. Hm.… a Derivation Formula?” she muttered, tilting her head.
Hearing that, Astrid leaned in closer.
“Yes, it is.”
Irene’s eyes widened slightly. Her expression shifted from confusion to curiosity, tapping her fingers against the page as she traced the lines of the formula.
“Was it always like this?” she asked, glancing at Astrid. “How did the Derivation Formula get simplified this much, but still stay so detailed?”
Astrid shook her head, her eyes still on the page. “It wasn’t like this before?”
“No.”
It wasn’t.
Back during Irene’s time at the Silver University Tower, the Derivation Formula was infamous for its complexity.
The conventional formula was long, cluttered with unnecessary redundancies that had to be memorized step-by-step.
One miscalculation could make the entire structure collapse, forcing students to start from scratch.
Professors back then always insisted that the complexity was “part of the learning experience.”
But what Irene was looking at now….
It was nothing like that.
“This is ridiculous,” Irene muttered, flipping the page to check for more examples.
Her eyes darted from one line to the next.
“Where are the mana harmonic sub-loops? The convergence points? This is skipping four whole steps that we had to calculate manually back in my day.”
Astrid nodded. “The Professor calls it ‘The Clean Path.’ He says the conventional method is ‘inefficient and primitive.'”
“I hate to say it…. But he’s not wrong.”
She leaned in closer, her eyes focusing on the mana flow structure.
No wasted symbols. No filler calculations.
The older method required brute memorization, forcing students to follow the rules with no shortcuts.
But this?
“Back in my time, it took us at least four pages to finish this,” Irene said, shaking her head. “We had to calculate each step one by one. Every loop, every conversion, every sub-unit of mana had to be logged manually.”
She didn’t stop there.
Irene went on and on, describing every painful detail. Every “back in my day” hardship.
Astrid sat there, watching her sister rant like a veteran recounting old war stories. Her lips twitched awkwardly, caught between laughing and cringing.
“They called it ‘character building,’ but I call it ‘suffering for no reason.’ Do you have any idea what that does to a person?”
Astrid gave her a flat stare. “I can imagine.”
Irene finally stopped, letting out a long, exhausted sigh like she’d just finished a marathon.
Her eyes flicked back to the notebook on the table, scanning it one more time.
Her gaze lingered on Vanitas’s name.
“That Vanitas guy….” she muttered under her breath. “He’s something else.”
For a moment, she was quiet.
Then, without warning, she put the notebook down, closed her eyes, and took a slow, deep breath.
Her eyes snapped open with a look of pure conviction.
“I’ve decided.”
Astrid blinked. “Huh?”
Irene raised her chin like she’d just made a life-altering proclamation, her expression serious.
“I’m marrying him.”
“….”
Silence.
Astrid froze, her eyes darting to her sister’s face, searching for even a hint of a joke.
“Come again?”
***
After bidding farewell to her sister, Irene made her way toward the mansion’s exit.
By the entrance, a knight stood as if waiting for her.
“Have a safe trip, Princess,” Nicolas said.
“….”
Irene slowed her steps, her gaze locking onto him.
For a moment, she said nothing.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Listen carefully, Nicolas,” Irene said. “If you ever do anything to harm Astrid, I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.”
“Of course I won’t, Princess,” Nicolas replied without hesitation.
His posture remained firm, as if the threat didn’t bother him at all.
“Lord Franz himself appointed me for the Princess’s protection. I would never betray that trust.”
“Ha.”
Irene let out a dry scoff. Her eyes were filled with nothing but disdain.
Franz? Wanting Astrid’s protection?
What a joke.
Her fingers curled into a loose fist at her side. Certain memories flickered in her mind.
She could still recall the countless assassination attempts she’d endured in the past.
She knew exactly who was responsible for them.
The Imperial Prince.
Their older brother.
The next in line for the throne.
Franz Barielle Aetherion.
Her eyes returned to Nicolas, even colder than before.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode out of the mansion.
Tak. Tak—!
***
Astrid blinked, momentarily stunned by the figure who had just entered the lecture hall.
“Good morning.”
His steps were slow as he made his way to the podium, his gaze sweeping across the room.
“I trust you all kept up with your studies during my absence.”
Professor Vanitas was back.
“….”
The room fell into complete silence.
But the way the students glanced at him, eyes filled with curiosity, lips pressed together as if holding back words, it was obvious.
They all had the same question in mind.
Mikhail Aubert.
A Former Great Power. A living legend.
And their professor had faced him.
No aspiring mage would let that slide without asking for details. The Council had done their best to keep the incident wrapped in a brief, sterile report.
But this was a university with the most aristocrats involved. With their connections to every corner of society, rumors had already spread.
Stories of Great Powers were rare enough, but hearing it from someone who’d confronted one?
That was something else entirely.
He’d been injured, yes. Badly. But the fact that he was standing here, alive and well, was an achievement in itself.
No one had to say it. It was clear in the way their gazes followed him.
But before anyone could open their mouth….
“No.”
His voice cut through the room, shutting down all their curiosity.
“I won’t entertain any questions.”
Adjusting his coat, Vanitas looked at somewhere in the back row, a student, with cerulean hair, and amber eyes.
Silas Ainsley.
Then, he shifted his gaze somewhere else.
“Open your textbooks,” he said.
