Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I went to Ian’s dormitory as soon as day broke.

I did not think it would be a nuisance, since it was already an hour by which he ought to have been awake for class anyway. Besides, there was no way Ian, who suffered from insomnia, would have fallen asleep.

The moment I knocked, Ian flung the door open from inside. Perhaps he was even more irritable in the morning. He shot me a sharp glare and said,

“What is it? First thing in the morning.”

“We made a bet, remember? About you sleeping. I came to win it.”

I held out the bottle containing the sleeping draught.

I turned the half-filled bottle upside down and flicked my wrist as I shook it. The liquid inside sloshed around, a small whirlpool forming within before slowly settling again.

“This is a sleeping draught. Drink it. You will sleep well.”

“Hmph.”

Ian gave a pointed snort, then drank the potion down in one swallow right in front of me.

It was unsweetened, so it was probably either astringent or extremely sour, yet he did not show the slightest sign of distaste.

“Bring me everything you know about Katein by tomorrow.”

“Ah. If that thing does not work—”

After handing over only the sleeping draught, I went to the lecture hall for class.

It was only later that I heard the top entrant of the Magic Department had been absent from lessons that day.

The effect was immediate.

---

As promised, I went to Ian’s dormitory the next morning.

Only a single day had passed, yet he looked so different that I found myself wondering whether he had always looked like this. The sagging dark circles under his eyes had withdrawn, and a different kind of light now shone in those eyes that had always looked lifeless.

He had not done anything to his face. He had only slept well, and yet his whole appearance had brightened. It showed from his voice alone.

“What is it?”

Ian pretended not to know why I had come, even though he obviously did.

It was probably because the sleeping draught had worked so well. Perhaps he found it awkward to step forward first and lie outright that it had done nothing.

“We made a bet, remember? That is why I am here. What about the sleeping draught I gave you yesterday? How was it?”

“Ah, that.”

Ian’s eyes drifted upward as though recalling something, and then he spoke a beat later.

The performance was so natural that, for an instant, I almost believed him. Then he continued.

“It had no effect at all.”

Just as he had done at the entrance ceremony, he opened his mouth wide and yawned.

His acting was so convincing that, for a moment, I found myself going over whether I might have made some mistake while making the sleeping draught.

I had not.

That much was certain. There was no way anything had gone wrong.

“So give me more. Did you not make the dose too small?”

“……”

The bastard was lying.

It was the exact same attitude he would later use when lying to Bishot that he still could not sleep.

I was certain he was lying.

Unfortunately, I had no way to prove it.

So instead, I snickered at him in a blatant display.

Ian flinched at my reaction.

That was fine.

I had expected all of this anyway. The reason Ian was coming at me so forcefully, resorting to this kind of absurdity, was because the matter tied to him was that serious.

If it had to do with the hidden truth behind Katein’s death, then of course he would need to know it no matter what.

“I will just count this as your victory, so be honest with me. You really could not sleep yesterday? Hm?”

Ian frowned and nodded.

“How many times do I have to say it before you understand? Your sleeping draught had no effect.”

“Even when I say I will count it as your victory, you still insist on it. Fine, I will tell you. The one who killed Katein was Dimagen. That settles it, does it not?”

Dimagen was a Dark Mage of the North who had not yet appeared in the story.

Naturally, it was a name Ian could never have heard before.

“Then you had better explain who that is!”

Exactly.

It was only natural that Ian would react this violently.

“All right. I will explain it in detail. But this is purely a favor on my part, is it not? So grant me one request as well.”

“If it is something I can do, then anything.”

“Good.”

Seeing how readily he agreed, perhaps there had been no need to make a wager in the first place.

Then again, perhaps that was not true either.

Whatever the case, I had severed the connection between Bishot and one of the male leads. In my own way, I had increased my chances of survival, so it was not wasted effort.

“Dimagen is…”

I began explaining Dimagen to Ian.

Who he was, and how he had killed Katein.

---

Dimagen was a Dark Mage whose roots stretched across the entire Empire. He had created a massive dungeon, larger than anything else in existence, and lived there.

He was the classic type of villain who would do absolutely anything for power, and he had committed several crimes on a considerable scale.

Dimagen made countless monsters into his familiars, abducted humans, and used them as experimental subjects. Katein, who had established the Magic Tower in the West, became one of Dimagen’s targets.

Katein had accumulated great quantities of mana in his body through long training and had mastered a wide range of magic, but he was somewhat lacking in actual combat experience.

Dimagen exploited that weakness. He dragged civilians into the conflict so that Katein could not deploy his specialty, Wide-Area Magic, and launched a coordinated attack together with a Curse Mage he had already brought to his side. Katein fought with astonishing tenacity and displayed the full extent of his abilities, but he could not overcome the numerical disadvantage.

And so Katein was defeated.

A portion of his soul was stolen by Dimagen. That soul contained a considerable quantity of mana and magical knowledge.

Using the last of his strength, Katein somehow managed to escape back to his Magic Tower, but recovering a soul once lost was no easy thing.

He slowly wasted away, and fearing that Ian might go after Dimagen in search of revenge, he concealed the truth. To the disciples in the Magic Tower, he made it seem as though he had merely fallen ill.

That was how Katein died.

It was a hollow death.

---

“…and that is what happened. You understand now, do you not?”

“I will kill him. No matter what.”

Ian’s eyes were bloodshot.

Judging from the redness spreading across his neck and face, he was genuinely furious.

His clenched fists trembled violently, and the veins rising over his skin throbbed. Mana reacted to his emotions and pressed down on the surrounding space.

I patted his forearm and said,

“Hey, calm down first, and listen. I will help you.”

The Academy, like any ordinary school, had vacations between semesters.

Originally, in the novel, Dimagen was dealt with during the winter break after the second semester.

At present, Dimagen had moved his base to the North in order to gather even more monsters under his command. He was defeated on a snowy day in a season when the already cold North had grown colder still.

Through one thing leading to another, the Grand Duke of the North and Bishot became entangled, and at some point Dimagen kidnapped Bishot. It was then that the Grand Duke of the North and Ian joined forces, rescued her, and defeated Dimagen.

In the process, Dimagen’s hideout was revealed to be in the deepest underground reaches of the North. Ian had stormed in there alongside the Grand Duke of the North and, after a hard-fought battle, emerged victorious.

Even if Dimagen’s own abilities were unimpressive compared with the male leads, the number of traps and familiars piled up in that place was overwhelming. If Ian went in alone, he could lose.

He might even die.

Would that benefit me?

Would it help my survival?

I spread out a map of the Empire and pointed to the place where Dimagen’s hideout should be.

“Here. Dimagen is here.”

“All right.”

Ian nodded readily.

He believed me without the slightest hesitation.

Why?

Was it not strange that I knew Dimagen’s location?

I could have been working with Dimagen and deceiving Ian.

“Hey, are you not curious how I know this? I could be lying to you.”

“I know.”

“What do you know? Stop dropping the subject and say it properly.”

Uncharacteristically, Ian hesitated.

It was as though he were wondering whether he should say what had already risen all the way to his throat.

“Hey, what is it? Just say it.”

Only after I urged him on did he clear his throat and speak.

“Did not your parents also die at the hands of a Dark Mage?”

“What?”

“Even if I am indifferent to matters outside the tower, I am still the master of a tower. Did you think I would not know even that much?”

“Ah.”

That had indeed been part of the setting.

If Raphael’s parents had remained alive, then Raphael would not have inherited the title. And if that had happened, various obstacles would have arisen in the story whenever he tried to harass Bishot.

So my sister had killed Raphael’s parents.

And since, just as my hair was black, it was apparently fashionable these days for the villains to be black as well, the culprit had naturally been made a Dark Mage.

That was nothing more than a setting chosen entirely for my sister’s convenience as the author.

“I can trust you.”

That was why Ian’s reaction felt burdensome.

And yet trying to explain any of that was hopeless. In the end, I merely let out a sigh.

“Haa… really? Fine. Then let us call it that. Now unclench your fists.”

Ian was worked up.

If I gave him only a little more information, he looked ready to run off that very instant and hunt down Dimagen.

If I guided this carefully, I could kill Ian.

As things stood, Ian was not yet strong enough to defeat Dimagen alone in a dungeon. The number of spells he could handle and his spellcraft itself might already have been first-rate, but he was still young.

The quality and quantity of mana were proportional to the number of years one had practiced magic, so the force of each of his attacks was still lacking. In the original, to make up for that, my sister had given Ian the trait that his magical power increased the angrier he became, but he had not gained that characteristic yet.

If I were to calculate his chances, they did not even reach half.

If I lied to him about a few of the traps, Ian would die at Dimagen’s hands.

It was the sort of choice that, rationally speaking, I ought to take without hesitation. One of the male leads would die, and my own chances of survival would rise.

And yet, strangely, I did not want to.

At this point, the possibility of Ian ending up with Bishot had already fallen about as low as it could. In that case, would it not be better to make use of him to the very end instead?

Ian’s magical talent was the greatest in the world.

If a crisis came, he might even be able to help me.

Having made up my mind, I brought up several of the things that needed to be prepared in order to catch Dimagen and tried to persuade him. I told him it was too dangerous right now. That he only needed to endure a little longer.

---

The greatest reason I had worked so hard to enter the Academy was Katarina. I had wanted to receive instruction from her, one of the Empire’s few Sword Masters and an outstanding swordsmanship teacher.

And indeed, in the original, Jefrin learned swordsmanship from Katarina and improved at a dazzling pace.

The original Jefrin was almost the very definition of a second male lead cliché. That was true even apart from his stubbornly upright nature, rigid enough to seem dull-witted.

If one were to list the qualities by which he appealed to the readers, they would be his unwavering devotion, with none of the push-and-pull games, and his exceptional swordsmanship. Compared with the other male leads, who flaunted grand families, wealth, and power, he was strikingly plain.

Ordinarily, he would have been a character I excluded from the list of true endgame male leads without hesitation, but because my sister had drilled Jefrin’s strengths into me one by one, there were too many reasons to feel uneasy about writing him off completely.

“Devotion, that is the key.”

“What do you know? This is not dullness. It is a love that goes beyond loyalty.”

“These are the kinds of characters that suddenly surge upward. He has to stay right beside the heroine for the image to come alive.”

But no matter how much screen time he was given, no matter how many convincing episodes were piled onto him, there were limits.

The greatest problem, first and foremost, was his combat ability.

Setting aside Jefrin’s personality, all that remained was his swordsmanship, and even that fell badly short compared with the other male leads.

Especially at the point right after admission to the Academy, even if you made an entire platoon of Jefrins, they still would not compare to the other male leads. He was that weak.

The cause was Jefrin’s uniquely poor destructive power.

Right after entering the Academy, Jefrin could not even break a single barrier cast by Ian.

No matter how fast one swung a sword, if it could not inflict damage, it was utterly useless.

That was why there was a power-up event designed specifically for such a fragile Jefrin.

Katarina’s instruction.

Katarina, the Sword Saint.

Alongside the captain of the White Lion Knights, she was counted among the greatest swordsmen in the Empire.

She was gifted not only in mastering swordsmanship, but in teaching it as well.

She could judge with exact precision how the disciple she taught would grow, strengthening their advantages while concealing their weaknesses.

Katarina taught Jefrin an entirely new technique and increased his destructive power.

Today was Katarina’s first lesson.

With my heart pounding in anticipation over what I would learn, I went to the training ground.

She came walking toward me with a bright smile.