“Sevis?!”
Cyril's gaze instantly froze. His eyes widened, pupils trembling with sheer disbelief.
“Are you sure you didn't mishear? Sevis? The person you just mentioned is named Sevis?!”
Cyril pressed forward step by step, staring intently at the young man as if trying to rip the answer directly from his mind.
Beads of cold sweat broke out on the young man's forehead. He clearly hadn't expected the other party to exhibit such a terrifying obsession.
“Yes, I shouldn't have...”
“Shouldn't have?”
“No, no, no! I absolutely did not mishear, please believe me! Sevis, it was definitely that name!”
The young man waved his hands in a panic, his tone filled with dread.
Cyril took a breath, seemingly forcing down the emotions swelling in his chest. He paced back and forth a few times before throwing his head back and letting out a soft chuckle.
“Oh, Cyril, my dear Cyril, how could you lose your composure like this?”
“How could he possibly know that unrest was bound to happen tonight? How could he know!”
“He just happened to rescue a few students with his subordinates, or perhaps organized a rescue with other instructors! What is there for you to panic about?”
“I know all of this. I've known it all along!”
Cyril muttered to himself, his voice rising and falling as if he were entirely lost in his own world.
“Lord Arbiter, actually, those students...”
“What?”
The young man swallowed hard, his lips trembling as he desperately weighed whether he should say his next words.
Seeing this, Cyril roared impatiently, “Spit it out!”
“Yes, yes! Lord Arbiter, those students weren't rescued by any instructors. In other words...”
“Sevis didn't collaborate with the academy's instructors to rescue those students at all?”
“That's right!”
Cyril burst into a mocking laugh.
“How laughable, how absurd! How many could he save by himself? Ten? Or maybe twenty?”
“Heh, don't tell me all those students who arrived early were saved by him alone?”
“It... seems so...”
“...”
In the corridor, all sound seemed to be instantly sucked dry. No one dared to speak, and the air grew suffocatingly heavy, leaving only a dead silence.
After a moment, Cyril calmed down, his right hand unconsciously clenching into a fist.
“Him alone? Are you sure?”
“Yes! Although the students' rumors are incredibly exaggerated—some even say he stormed three buildings in three minutes and dealt with five Tier 3 magical beasts at once—still...”
“...none of those students mentioned anyone else. Only Sevis's name came out of their mouths.”
“Roughly how many?”
“What?”
The young man blanked for a moment.
“Those talking about Sevis—just how many of them are there?!”
“There are... simply too many, Lord Arbiter!”
The young man's voice carried a panic he couldn't hide.
“The scene was too chaotic for me to get an exact count! But... but I'm certain this news has already spread to the ears of most of the students!”
Cyril gritted his teeth, his mind racing at an unprecedented speed.
How could he possibly do that? How is that possible?!
He was clearly exhausted to that extent. Where would he get the energy to rescue others?!
He's just a Tier 4 Mage! A single Tier 3 magical beast would drain nearly thirty percent of his mana! Even with that Tier 6 magical tool, it would only give him three or four times more storage!
If those early-arriving students were truly saved by him, doesn't that mean... he cleared out all the magical beasts in the entire academic area by himself?
How could anyone achieve that?!
It's almost as if... he has an infinite source of mana!
“Lord Arbiter, actually, that's not all...”
“Huh?”
“Sevis... he also captured several enemies and brought them back.”
“Enemies?”
“Yes, those people are...”
“Take me to see them!”
...
Inside the cold, cramped interrogation room, two figures were tightly bound by coarse ropes. One was a petite young girl, and the other was an elderly man who looked like withered wood. Sitting side by side in the dim light, they appeared utterly helpless.
“What a surprise. The old geezer who brags about how powerful his necromancy is every single day actually got thrown in here too.”
The girl shook her head helplessly.
“Looks like you don't have to compete with anyone anymore. We're all in the same boat.”
“The same?”
The old man seemed to have been poked in a sore spot, his tone turning highly displeased.
“Don't lump me in with you low-class mages!”
The old man's voice was dripping with disdain.
“And don't you dare group me with some beast tamer who can't even protect her own magical beasts! I haven't fallen to such a pathetic state!”
At the mention of her magical beasts, the girl was like a lit fuse, her eyes instantly burning with rage.
“What do you know?! How do you think I ended up in here? How do you think my magical beasts were killed?!”
“He just casually uttered a few words, and without even a pause for a chant, he conjured ten Tier 3 spells in an instant! Ten! That was ten of them! Do you really think you could have blocked that?!”
With that, the girl took a breath, trying to calm herself down.
She knew very well that when arguing with someone like him, the worst thing she could do was lose her temper first.
“But it's fine. My magical beasts were still powerful. They withstood ten Tier 3 spells before being killed by his sneak attack.”
The girl lifted her chin slightly, her tone laced with blatant mockery.
“If it had been a certain Mr. Necromancer who can only summon a few broken skeletons, you'd probably be long dead by now, without even an intact corpse left.”
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, the girl covered her mouth in mock surprise.
“Oh dear! I'm so sorry, I forgot that judgment magic naturally possesses an absolute law suppression over the undead.”
“By then, what lies on the ground probably wouldn't even count as a corpse—at most, just a pile of foul-smelling, rotten meat scraps, right?”
The girl couldn't help but giggle, clearly amused by her own description.
“You were just blasted by a round of spells, is that really something to brag about?”
As if recalling his own defeat, the old man suddenly grew quite agitated.
“In front of his magical wolf, those beasts of yours are nothing but a joke! If you faced it, those cute little plushies of yours probably wouldn't even dare to show their claws!”
The girl suddenly stood up, glaring into the old man's eyes. She could tolerate insults directed at herself, but questioning her magical beasts was absolutely unacceptable!
“Stop making up stories! My beasts would never—”
“Would never what? Get knocked down in an instant?”
Refusing to back down, the old man glared right back.
“What right do you have to brag about your beasts in front of me?”
“That magical wolf of his—at first I thought it was just an ordinary Contract Spirit. But the result? It sucked away all the mana I had gathered over the course of the night, which included decades of my hard work, leaving not a single drop, just like draining a glass of water!”
“And after it finished absorbing it, he even uttered an ancient secret phrase I've never heard of to curse me!”
The girl was taken aback. This was the first time she had heard of mana absorption, let alone from a magical beast.
“What secret phrase?”
The girl asked, curiosity piqued.
Exhaling a breath of turbid air, the old man replied impatiently, “He said...”
“‘Your mana is very smooth!’”
“Very smooth? What does 'very smooth' mean?”
“How should I know?! But it's definitely a curse! A curse on my mana!”
Suddenly, the girl remembered something and said offhandedly, “The guy who defeated me seemed to have a magical wolf too, though it was just for show. After all, it looked pretty dumb.”
“He had one too? What was his name?”
Hearing this, the girl puffed out her chest, looking somewhat proud. “That was the eldest young master of the Xavier family, Sevis!”
“He's from a great family! A Tier 4 Mage!”
With that, the girl smugly raised her eyebrows at the old man, as if she felt her defeat was more honorable.
“His name was also Sevis?!”
“Yeah... Wait, what do you mean?”
As if unable to believe it, the old man's voice trembled slightly.
“The guy who absorbed my mana was also named Sevis...”
Their gazes locked in midair, and the air seemed to freeze. After a prolonged, dead silence, the girl finally averted her eyes and spoke slowly.
“Could it be... the same person?”
Rate on N.U.
