Chapter 136
“Next Ivory Tower Lord.”
Simon’s pupils trembled.
Without realizing it, the strength drained from his arms, and Serne, who had been on his back, slid down to the floor like a slide.
‘Did she just say she’s giving me the Ivory Tower?’
Simon turned to her with a flustered face. She was smiling brightly.
“You heard me correctly~”
Simon rubbed his face with his palm for a moment. Regardless of his interest in the Ivory Tower, it was a shocking thing to hear.
Like organizing books fallen on the floor back into the shelf, he calmly put his thoughts in order and regained composure.
“That’s impossible.”
Simon reached a conclusion.
“No matter how much you’re the official successor of the Ivory Tower, you don’t have the authority to hand over the title of Tower Lord to some stranger.”
“Then how about thinking of it this way?”
She stretched out her long, white fingers.
“Marriage with the Ivory Tower heir."
“……?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing, but honestly, the Ivory Tower is such a rigid, patriarchal organization due to its long history. In that long history, there have only been two female Tower Lords. According to the tower’s law, the ‘Tower Lord’ actually refers to the most outstanding male mage in the tower. So…”
She let out a small cough, and with a flushed face uncharacteristic of her usual demeanor, continued,
“After the marriage, I’ll revise the position as the Tower Queen, and step back. Then the one I serve—the Tower Lord—naturally becomes you.”
“……”
Simon let out a hollow laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous. If that happens, the Tower Lord becomes a powerless figurehead, just a pretty face. The real power would still lie with the Tower Queen who followed the legitimate line of succession.”
“Wow—”
She responded in a slightly colder voice.
“That was a super romantic confession just now, and this is how you respond?”
“Huh?”
“Hmph, whatever.”
She turned her head sharply with a sulky expression.
‘……???’
From Simon’s perspective, it was bewildering.
She had made a recruitment offer, so he simply analyzed whether the offer was reasonable and practical, but now the one who made the offer was the one sulking.
‘Ugh, trying something I don’t usually do is so hard.’
Serne was also fuming internally.
Did she really have to go this far just to win someone’s heart?
Normally, just sticking a few feathers on someone and they'd crawl like dogs, licking her shoes with devotion.
Above all, by now he should’ve realized that the core of the offer wasn’t the position of Tower Lord, it was him.
How could he be so dense, going on about power and figurehead nonsense?
‘What greater merit could there be than the chance to have me?’
Why was she going to such lengths only for this person?
The more she thought about it, the more irritated she became.
While she was struggling to suppress her annoyance through a storm of thoughts, Simon approached with firm strides.
Grab.
Then, he reached out and placed his hands firmly on both of her shoulders.
Still not having calmed down, she glared at him as if to say “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Stretching. The assistant instructor over there is giving us a look.”
“……Ah.”
Serne glanced over at the other students, then placed both hands on Simon’s shoulders.
The two of them hesitated briefly, then pulled their hips back and bent their waists at a ninety-degree angle.
“Inhale!”
At the command, the two pressed down gently on each other’s shoulders, holding the posture. The stiffness in their backs and shoulders melted away. They repeated the movement several times.
“Next pose!”
This time, it was a seated stretch.
The two sat with their legs spread as wide as possible until the soles of their feet touched, then one would pull the other forward by the hands.
‘Ah, crap.’
Serne looked down at her school uniform.
She hated physically active Magical Combat classes, often skipped them, or just erased the instructors’ memories with feathers or faked participation. So, she’d shown up in her usual uniform out of habit, and now found herself in an awkward situation.
“Wait a sec.”
Simon took off the thin jacket he was wearing over his gym clothes. Then he came over and gently tied it around her waist.
“This should work, right? If it’s still uncomfortable…”
“Thanks. Let’s try it.”
The two sat facing each other, legs spread until the soles of their feet met, and clasped hands.
“I’ll pull first.”
Her body was suddenly yanked forward toward Simon.
“Wah! My back hurts!”
“This is how it’s supposed to stretch.”
“Wait! Agh!”
She grimaced and gave Simon a resentful glare. Simon burst out laughing.
‘Hmmm.’
Then Serne’s gaze shifted to the side.
Over there, Maelyn—who was doing stretches with a girl from Class C—was staring daggers at them.
The irritation she’d been feeling melted away. Her mood lifted considerably.
Serne continued stretching with Simon, deliberately chatting cheerfully.
Simon, now relaxed, showed much richer emotional expressions than usual.
“Erzebet’s ability seems useful. Have you ever done anything weird with it? Like transforming her into a classmate?”
Seeing Simon’s face flush bright red at the question, Serne burst into genuine laughter.
“So you have?”
“No…! I mean! That was Erze’s idea, not mine!”
Beyond just enjoying Maelyn’s jealousy, the moment itself wasn’t so bad.
In front of her, humans were no different than puppets.
They had to laugh when she wanted, cry when she wanted.
To every answer: YES.
They always carried only the emotions she wanted, showed only the reactions she wanted.
Because that was comfortable.
But now…
‘Maybe it’s not so bad to have a toy I can’t control sometimes?’
It was a new kind of fun to play with. Whatever question or topic she threw out, the reaction varied. Most of all, she couldn’t predict him.
Just like his reaction to her marriage proposal, talking about powerless authority and whatnot.
Sometimes Simon hid his emotions, sometimes he laughed, and sometimes he even attacked her in return.
“And yet you say you’re serious about Maelyn too.”
“Well, yeah.”
That made it fun.
Refreshing.
Not bad at all.
For the first time, she found herself thinking more deeply about something called an equal relationship.
“Warm-up is over! Everyone, stop now!”
Hongpeng’s shout rang out. She finally pulled herself out of her pink-tinted thoughts.
‘Seriously felt like I was possessed by a ghost.’
The two of them slowly got up.
Maelyn was shooting laser beams from her eyes in their direction, but Serne casually ignored it and chuckled.
“Now, what we’ll be learning this time is an advanced application of Internal Darkness Operation.”
Internal Darkness Operation didn’t require anything particularly special.
It was a technique where you activate your Core and circulate Darkness evenly throughout your body to enhance all bodily functions by one level. Simply put, it was a technique that turned your whole body into a ‘Core’.
At first, you have to consciously guide and direct the flow, but if you repeat it using Darkness’s ‘property of retention,’ then simply activating the Core will maintain the state of Internal Darkness Operation.
All the Magical Combat classes so far were part of a curriculum
designed to make Internal Darkness Operation naturally take root in the body.
Even running drills, slow at the beginning of the semester, had gradually increased in speed to the point where you couldn’t keep up without maintaining Internal Darkness Operation.
Even mounting the hippos required mastery of Internal Darkness Operation to keep your balance.
But this time, it was a higher-level technique.
“Internal Darkness Divergence!”
Darkness began to flow from Hongpeng’s body like steam. The students gasped in awe.
“It’s not that difficult! Just increase the circulation speed of your Internal Darkness Operation to three times what you’ve been doing!”
The students' expressions went blank.
It’s not that difficult?
“Of course, if you just raise it to three times the speed, your organs and intestines will burst and you’ll die, right?”
“……What?”
“So you have to discharge the Darkness outside your body! Like this.”
She looked at the Darkness dripping from her body. This time, instead of steam, it fell in droplets like sweat.
For beginners, discharging in liquid form along with sweat was easier than emitting it as vapor.
“While this technique is active, you’ll be able to win against opponents much larger and stronger than yourself in Magical Combat! Since you’re all beginners, we’ll limit it to 3 minutes!”
If you increase the speed of Darkness flow threefold, it naturally puts a burden on your body. So you discharge it like sweat through your skin, while the Core continues to emit Darkness, maintaining this strengthened state for 3 minutes.
It was a kind of trump card technique used to completely reverse a critical situation, or to decisively end a match.
“Alright! Let’s try it right away!”
The assistants coordinated the students. Now it was clear why they were paired. While one student turned around and prepared for Internal Darkness Divergence, the other would activate a ‘discharge’ magic circle behind their back.
Originally, full completion required the user to handle discharge themselves, but for now, as it was still the early stage, they were only attempting to expand their Internal Darkness Operation.
“Mind if I go first?”
“Sure, whatever suits you.”
Simon turned around. He took a deep breath and activated his Core.
The flow he had repeated hundreds of times in real combat. Darkness was circulating through his body.
He liked this current state. The balance was perfect.
The thought of pushing this threefold made him fear that if he failed, it might disrupt his well-maintained Internal Darkness Operation. But—
‘I’m not planning to stay where I am.’
Simon took the plunge. First, he increased the Core’s Darkness output to double.
“Guh!”
A groan escaped from his lips before he could stop it. He hadn’t even gone threefold, just doubled it and his entire body was reacting with resistance.
“Discharging now~”
He felt Serne’s palm touch his back.
Moments later, Darkness escaped through the discharge outlet. Gasping for breath, Simon gathered his focus again, and this time, immediately activated the Core to triple its output.
“Gaaah!”
Simon collapsed to the floor in less than five seconds. It seemed the same had happened to the other students, most were either lying flat or crouched in exhaustion.
“Hmmm~”
Serne crossed her arms.
“Looks like it’ll be hard until you tame your Darkness. You’ll just have to brute-force it with endless practice.”
Simon nodded and pushed himself up.
“Do you want to try?”
“No thanks, this kind of technique. Even if I learned it, I’d never use it. More importantly…”
She glanced subtly toward Maelyn, then turned back and spoke again.
“Want to try again? This time, my way.”
“Your way?”
“Yep!”
She stepped back.
Then, holding her skirt bashfully with both hands, she started bouncing in place.
“……?!”
Feathers began falling like snow from her pale skin. In a flash, they piled up at her feet.
“You’re not thinking of using your power on me, are you?”
“Hehe.”
She brushed it off with a laugh, picked up a feather from the floor, and began sticking it to and peeling it off her own body.
“Is it this one? Or this one?”
Each time she murmured, the feather’s Darkness shade subtly shifted.
“Ah, it’s this one.”
With a gesture toward the air, the fallen feathers on the floor changed color to match, then flew to attach themselves to her body.
She stuck on about twenty feathers, then snapped her fingers. The remaining feathers on the ground transformed into a magic circle.
“Wait, what are you—”
“Quiet.”
She touched one of the feathers to Simon’s body. He flinched and immediately tried to react but then,
‘Huh?’
His mind relaxed. Tension melted away and his muscles loosened. He could hear the sound of wind rushing through trees and grass.
“It’s a tranquilizer. Professor Keyzen is watching us with eyes wide open. Do I look like an idiot who’d try something shady in front of her?”
“……”
She wasn’t wrong.
As Simon hesitated, she placed her hands on her hips and said,
“I’m not going to do anything bad, so just turn around like before.”
Simon hesitated for a moment, then turned with a grim face.
“Yap!”
Suddenly, she pressed herself against his back in a tight hug. Simon, who had finally calmed down thanks to the sedative effect, tensed up again and blushed.
“Serne!”
“Face forward.”
At her words, Simon looked around.
‘Wait a minute.’
Time felt slow, and he couldn’t perceive anything else around him. It resembled the mental state Bahil had used.
“In this state, you should be able to do it, right?”
Her voice sounded like a lullaby.
“Try it. I’ll help you.”
Superb.