Callix continued to poke the cheek of the younger brother he was seeing for the first time since infancy.
His right cheek, gently rounded with baby fat, glowed with a fresh, pinkish hue.
When poked, the resilient flesh quickly sprang right back to its original shape.
Looking up at him with large, round eyes, his younger brother seemed to wonder why on earth he was acting like this.
Yet Callix himself had no idea why he was doing such a thing, either.
Had his mind completely snapped because of his rampaging mana?
The ferocious mana that had always clawed at his internal organs like a beast’s talons was uncharacteristically calm.
Even while wondering why this was happening, he couldn’t tear his finger away from the child’s cheek, which was as radiant as spring blossoms.
It was a truly insane thought, but the illusion arose that the very moment he pulled his finger away, he might die.
Having had his cheek poked repeatedly for a long while, Damian finally turned his head away and cupped his own cheek with his hands, as if it hurt.
‘To think a person’s hand could be that small.’
Even though Callix had once been a child himself, he found his young brother strangely fascinating.
“Young Duke, let us escort you inside.”
His squire, who served as a human shield on the battlefield, looked perplexed to see Callix lagging behind the Duke and urged him forward.
Callix withdrew his index finger, from which tiny sparks seemed to dance.
“Let’s go inside.”
He decided to attribute the reason for his inexplicable behavior to the fact that he hadn’t slept properly for a month, had fought grueling battles, and had coughed up blood dozens of times due to mana overload.
His physical condition was that poor.
Callix had awakened as a mage at the age of four; the problem was that his power spanned a terrifying nine circles, much like when Emperor Helios had received blessings from multiple gods.
When his mother was alive, he could receive her divine blessing, but she had passed away while giving birth to Damian.
Having lost his beloved Gem, the Duke had lost his reason and tried to kill the infant.
Although Callix had also resented his younger brother, killing him wouldn’t bring their mother back, so he had persuaded his father and left for the battlefield.
While that might have been a fortunate turn of events for Damian, it had been a disastrous choice for Callix.
Though there were dozens of Gems for mages at the garrison base, not a single one of them could stop his mana from rampaging.
Figuring that merely holding hands and hugging wouldn’t be enough, he had even tried kissing a Gem, only to be overcome with nausea.
No matter how hard he tried, his aversion to Gems wouldn’t vanish, and eventually, failing to anticipate that the war with the Solemio Empire would drag on for so long, he had forced himself to use magic excessively.
His body, unable to endure it, had completely broken down, leaving him with no choice but to return to the North.
The reason the Adamantia Empire had gone to war was due to the severe shortage of Gems.
When the imperial family found no Gems domestically, they had dispatched a survey team to search abroad.
They discovered that Gems who had fled the Adamantia Empire had given birth to children abroad, and those children had been born as Gems.
They attempted to bring them back to the mainland, but the Solemio Empire refused.
That being the case, they had no choice but to bring the Gems back by force.
The imperial family had dispatched troops to retrieve the Gems, but in the process, battles broke out with the Solemio Empire’s soldiers.
That war had already been dragging on for five years.
Arriving at the dining hall behind his squire, Callix bowed his waist in greeting to the Duke and took his seat beside him. He wondered if his father felt nothing upon seeing that child.
Over and over, the image of pink hair kept floating into his mind, whispering softly to hurry and go fetch him.
Hitting his noisy head hard with his hand fortunately managed to quiet it down.
“Cal, are you still hearing auditory hallucinations?”
“Yes, regrettably.”
“Haa. This is a major problem. Where on earth are we going to find your jewel?”
“I believe that someday I, too, will meet a jewel just like Mother, just as you did, Father.”
“Yes, Sierra will pray for you from the heavens. Cal, you mustn’t lose hope.”
Maldini tightly grasped his son’s hand. He was terrified that Callix might die from mana overload.
Thanks to being born with the robust physique of an ultra-dominant alpha, he thankfully healed his own injured body whenever his mana rampaged, but there was a limit to that, too.
If they didn’t find a Gem with a high matching rate for Callix, he would soon die.
“Charlotte says she’s secured a Gem for now. She’s a lower-tier Gem, but you should put out the immediate fire first.”
“Thank you for your consideration, Your Grace.”
True to great nobility, they finished their meal with flawless etiquette.
In place of the Grand Duke, Callix headed toward the bedroom.
Arriving there, he clicked his tongue at the Gem shivering naked before him.
Even without making physical contact, he had a gut feeling that his matching rate with this wretch wouldn’t align.
“Crawl over here.”
The Gem cowered in fear of Callix, who was younger than her, and trembled violently.
Superimposing the Gem before him with the pink-haired child, Callix felt a wave of dizziness and pressed a hand to his forehead.
In an instant, his vision blurred, plunging him into total darkness.
‘This is extremely dangerous.’
He hurriedly grabbed the lower-tier Gem’s hand.
Just as he expected, because the matching rate was low, blood surged up and spiked in his throat.
“Uwaaah!”
Terrified out of her wits, the frightened Gem jerked her hand away from his grip.
The mage’s eyes were turning bloodshot.
This was the precursor to an outright rampage.
If things continued this way, she would either be brutally murdered by a mage lacking divine blessing or die caught up in the exploding mana.
The Gem fled, abandoning the mage.
Fortunately, because the act of receiving a divine blessing inherently involved sexual elements, there were no guards stationed nearby.
Driven by the absolute necessity to get as far away as possible, the Gem was crawling away on weakened legs when a pink-haired child eating chocolate chip cookies suddenly appeared before her.
“Hurry and hide!”
Blinking his large eyes, the child turned around and ran away alongside her.
The door flew wide open, and Callix, his pupils completely unfocused, sprinted out.
A mage who had lost consciousness operated purely on instinct.
He snatched up his fleeing Gem and pulled her tightly into a tight embrace.
“Found you, my jewel.”
‘Hiss. Hiss.’
Every time he exhaled ragged breaths, Callix’s body—which had been wounded as if slashed by sharp blades due to the rampaging mana—healed itself.
Shushu dangled his legs in midair, struggling to break free, but Callix’s arms wrapped around him as relentlessly as wild vines, leaving him completely unable to move.
The Gem prepared by the ducal estate had already fled far away.
Convinced that his identity as a fake younger brother had finally been discovered, Shushu burst into tears.
“Sob. Hnngh. Hic.”
Callix licked away the tears streaming down Shushu’s rosy cheeks with his tongue, like a hound comforting its master.
Startled, Shushu widened his eyes, which shone like amber.
