* * *
He had sensed that something was off.
Ever since the coming-of-age ceremony.
Sean hadn’t even come to see him off when he left for the Royal Academy.
It had felt like a tiny splinter lodged beneath his fingernail—small enough to ignore, yet persistent enough to nag at him.
Still, he hadn’t thought too much of it.
‘Sei has nowhere else to go, anyway.’
That day had been one of the most liberating of Raizen’s life, a day when a problem that had plagued him for nearly four years had finally been resolved.
Because during those years, Raizen had been anything but sane.
He had scoured books on other worlds—books that were dismissed as absurd fiction by academia—just to find Sean, who existed nowhere in this world.
When that yielded nothing, he had turned to teleportation magic, casting it again and again, even knowing it was futile.
Looking back, even he thought he had been insane.
He had teleported until his mana was completely drained.
He had felt his body reaching its limit for the first time, yet he had still tried to cast magic, nearly tearing himself apart.
The coming-of-age ceremony had been a reward for those agonizing years.
It had given him reassurance that even if Sean disappeared again, he would find him.
And, more importantly, it had solidified his belief that the faceless man in his dreams would never appear in reality.
And Sean… Sean had even admitted, with his own lips, that he was a soul from another world.
So Raizen had assumed everything would be fine.
Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would face this moment today.
‘Sei.’
There was no way Sean hadn’t heard him.
And yet, his gaze remained elsewhere.
Raizen’s heart pounded loudly in his chest, each beat shaking his very foundation.
What was he supposed to do?
He had no answer.
And then, he realized something.
If he wanted Sean’s attention—if he wanted to keep him close—then he needed Sean to look at him.
Sean had always watched him.
Even when he feared Raizen, he never averted his gaze.
That was why Raizen had never noticed.
‘Why won’t you look at me?’
Calling his name wouldn’t work.
There was only one solution.
If Sean wouldn’t look at him willingly, he would make him.
Raizen instinctively reached out.
At that moment—
“Congratulations on your Best Thesis Award, Young Lord Pantheon.”
Before his hand could touch Sean, an unwelcome voice interrupted.
Raizen turned his head, suppressing the urge to scowl.
Karon Luavis stood before him.
“Thank you, Lord Luavis,” Raizen replied smoothly. “And congratulations on your own excellent thesis.”
He deliberately spoke more to offer his congratulations.
From the perspective of the Duke Luavis, his son had once again been overshadowed by Pantheon, which must not have sat well with him.
It was well known that he treated his children as mere expendables.
“Oh… Haha, thank you.”
The amusing part was that Karon Luavis actually reacted to things like this.
His response was similar yet unmistakably different from before he had suddenly become someone else.
The previous Karon Luavis, consumed by inferiority, would have leaped at anything Raizen said. But now…
‘It’s the reaction of someone seeing an opponent they should never lose to actually surpass them.’
It was the first time he had ever received such a look.
The gaze of someone looking down at a being far inferior to themselves.
At some point, Karon Luavis had begun looking at Raizen with those eyes.
‘I don’t know who’s inside that body, but they’re not friendly toward me.’
Raizen instinctively understood this—and found it satisfying.
The moment he recognized that Karon Luavis had become an entirely different entity, he too had become such a being to Raizen.
Could a person be this irritating, this detestable?
Raizen’s deep-seated aversion toward humanity as a whole had not entirely faded, but until now, he had rarely felt personal dislike for individuals.
They simply weren’t worth the effort.
Besides, he had never been particularly interested in others.
Annoyance was one thing, but wanting to erase someone completely—this was a first.
“Oh, by the way, how has the Pantheon prince been? I meant to write him, but I’ve been too busy with academic conference preparations.”
In front of the Duke and Duchess of Pantheon, Karon Luavis deliberately struck up a conversation with Sean.
Raizen caught the quick exchange of glances between his parents before turning his attention to Sean’s reaction.
Sean briefly looked at Karon Luavis, then lowered his gaze entirely and smiled.
“Oh… is that so?”
A smile of politeness, an answer devoid of substance.
At that moment, Raizen couldn’t help but think, amusingly, that he had won.
‘Just as my brother suspected, he’s the same as me. But our goals are different. I will never stand on the same side as him. If it makes you anxious, I can make a ‘Magician’s Oath’ about it.’
The words Sean had spoken at his coming-of-age ceremony had been sincere.
“Oh dear, you didn’t wait for my letter? That’s a little disappointing.”
“Haha…”
Sean merely laughed at Karon Luavis’s remark.
‘That face—annoyed and exasperated.’
Raizen could see the emotions Sean was trying to hide behind his forced smile.
Karon Luavis, unaware, simply stared at Sean with a lingering gaze.
Raizen barely restrayned himself from giving in to the urge to pluck out those deep olive-colored eyes.
“Well then, I’ll be in touch soon.”
“Yes, sure.”
Even with Sean’s utterly indifferent response, Karon Luavis smiled in satisfaction.
Then, he reached for Sean’s hand, likely intending to kiss the back of it.
‘How dare you.’
Raizen intercepted, taking Sean’s hand before Karon Luavis could.
“Such gestures are best reserved for more appropriate occasions, Lord Luavis.”
This wasn’t a social gathering, and such greetings were entirely unnecessary.
Karon Luavis stared at Raizen for a moment before chuckling softly.
“My apologies for the discourtesy.”
He surprisingly conceded without resistance, then bid the Duke and Duchess of Pantheon farewell before leaving.
Raizen watched his retreating figure with a glare, then noticed the subtle movements of Sean’s hand in his grasp.
Unlike before, it was unclear whether Sean wanted to pull away or if there was another reason for it.
So Raizen chose to ignore it and held on.
Eventually, Sean seemed to give up, his fingers ceasing their small movements.
It felt as though the lights of the world, once extinguished, were flickering back to life.
∗ ∗ ∗
Afterward, he accompanied his parents on a tour of the Royal Academy.
They seemed more excited than usual as they reminisced about their school years.
Raizen had always known they were alumni of the Royal Academy.
There was no way not to.
Not only his parents but also the Marquis Kreveta and his wife had been legendary figures at the academy.
Still, he hadn’t expected them to have left behind a place like this.
“My, my, it’s still here just as it was.”
Hearing his mother’s exclamation, Raizen momentarily lost his words.
To think that they had established a secret clubroom in a place even the academy’s headmaster might not know about…
The story of ‘Valencia,’ the small club formed by his parents and the Marquis couple, was still passed down to this day.
Club activities were mandatory, but all four of them had been constantly hounded by relentless suitors, causing endless trouble.
So in the end, they had formed a club with the bare minimum required members—just the four of them.
The problem was that this so-called ‘small club,’ Valencia, was far from ordinary.
Every time they submitted their activity reports, they produced unheard-of magical artifacts or intricate transformation potions, stirring up the entire academy.
They had even made a fortune selling those inventions in Ether’s commercial district.
Even now, the academy still held murals they had painted, imbued with special magic.
Led by the Marquis’s wife, who was said to be an exceptional artist, they had enchanted the murals with unique spells.
By touching the mural and envisioning a place they wanted to visit, students could experience a magically recreated version of that location for a brief time.
It was a type of illusion magic, but its level of realism and immersion was astounding.
Students exhausted from their studies still used it to this day.
Valencia had been disbanded after the four graduated.
The truly interesting part?
It was only after their graduation that the existence of their real clubroom was discovered.
Rumors abounded that the true Valencia clubroom housed all sorts of bizarre, unpublished magical artifacts, potions, and blueprints.
Even now, many students searched for it.
But…
‘To think the real clubroom was hidden behind the main hall’s statue.’
Was this boldness, or at least an attempt at secrecy? It was hard to tell.
It seemed they had placed an entry restriction spell, allowing only the four of them access.
But even so, with such lingering traces of magic, someone should have caught on by now.
‘Just how meticulously did they hide the traces?’
This had to be the work of the Marquis Kreveta.
As Raizen stepped into the space hidden beyond the main hall’s statue, the surrounding scenery changed in an instant.
The large room was unnervingly well-maintained, as if someone had been taking care of it all this time.
The space was divided into four sections, each with its own distinct atmosphere—so distinct that it was obvious whose section was whose.
“This is the real Valencia clubroom.”
The Duchess beamed at Raizen and Sean.
* * *
