The silence in the ruined summoning hall was heavy, broken only by the crackling of residual frost and the heavy breathing of the vanguard team.
Princess Penia stepped forward, her royal guards fanning out to secure the perimeter.
She looked at the scorched ceiling, the shattered magical arrays, and finally at the ash-blonde boy standing calmly amidst the destruction.
“Rothtaylor,” Penia said, her voice steady but laced with undeniable awe.
“What happened here?”
Ed let out a slow, tired breath, wiping a thin trail of blood from his chin.
He didn’t bow or launch into a detailed, subordinate-style military report.
He simply gave her the facts, maintaining a polite but distant boundary.
“The summoning circle is broken, Princess.
The Dark Spirit Belopher was incinerated, and the Calamity-class entity was banished back through the rift.
The crisis is over.”
Taylee McLore gripped his sword, his knuckles turning white.
He looked at the sheer scale of the devastation—the melted stone, the shattered ice, the lingering smell of ozone.
“You expect us to believe you did this?” Taylee demanded, his voice a mix of frustration and disbelief.
“You barely have any magical capacity!
What kind of dark trick did you use?!”
“Taylee, enough,” Penia ordered, though she shared his quiet suspicions.
Ed’s power defied all known logic of their world.
Ziggs stepped past Taylee and offered Ed a stiff, respectful nod.
“You saved Elka.
And you stopped this disaster.
I don’t care how you did it.
The northern grasslands honor their debts, Rothtaylor.”
Ed met Ziggs’s gaze and gave a small nod in acknowledgment.
Before Taylee could argue further, a small figure casually bypassed the royal guards.
Lucy Mayrill walked into the center of the ruined hall, her oversized hat slightly askew.
She ignored the Princess and the ‘heroes’ entirely, walking straight up to Ed.
She stared up at him, her unblinking eyes piercing right through his stoic facade.
“You,” Lucy said, her voice lacking its usual sleepy drawl.
“For a second there…
you felt ancient.
The mana in the air didn’t just obey you; it submitted to you.
What was that?”
Ed looked down at the diminutive archmage.
His body was screaming in agony from the backlash of Sylvia’s Dragon Will, but his gaze remained steady.
He didn’t want to push away the one person who had actually helped him with the fire dragon.
“A desperate trick to survive.
I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes, then her lips curled into a faint, feline smile.
“Liar.
But I like you.
You’re interesting.
Don’t forget you owe me that dried meat for my help, Ed Rothtaylor.”
Ed’s expression remained perfectly flat, though a faint hint of respect flashed in his eyes.
“I’ll have it ready.”
She turned and walked away, yawning loudly, leaving the vanguard team entirely bewildered. The source of this chapter is g.com.
As Ed carefully picked up the unconscious Janica, a smooth, silken voice called out.
“Senior Ed.”
Lortelle Kehelland stepped out from the shadows of the doorway.
Her merchant smile was gone, replaced by an expression of intense, genuine fascination.
She looked at Janica resting safely in his arms.
“You truly don’t sell out your friends,” Lortelle murmured.
Her usual calculating demeanor softened, replaced by a strange, newfound respect.
“I must apologize.
I completely misjudged you.”
Ed paused for a moment, meeting her gaze.
“Money can’t buy everything, Kehelland.”
He didn’t say it as a rebuke, but as a pragmatic truth.
Leaving the merchant girl with a lot to think about, Ed walked past the stunned group.
“The professors are arriving.
I leave the cleanup to you, Princess.
She needs rest.”
A few hours later, Ed sat quietly on a wooden chair in the academy’s medical ward.
Janica was resting in the bed beside him, her breathing finally stable.
The professors had swarmed the facility, completely baffled by the remnants of the battle, but Ed had deflected their questions, claiming he had merely disrupted the unstable summoning circle at the right time.
Now, in the quiet of the ward, he finally allowed himself to review the System’s notifications.
“System,” he muttered mentally.
[Main Quest Complete: The Rampage of the Dark Spirit Belopher.]
[Evaluating Host Performance…
Exceptional.] [Calculating Rewards…]
[Arthur Leywin Growth Template: +15% Synchronization.
(Total Sync: 25%)]
[Host’s Embryonic Core has stabilized and advanced to the Initial Stage due to extreme combat forging.]
[Reward Unlocked: Deviant Magic Attribute – ‘Lightning’ (Phase 1).]
Ed felt a sudden, sharp jolt run through his nervous system.
A powerful, crackling energy settled deep within his newly stabilized core.
Lightning.
One of the most destructive and versatile deviant elements.
It was a massive leap in his potential.
A soft rustling sound broke his focus.
Janica shifted on the bed.
Her pink hair was disheveled, and her eyes fluttered open, filled with confusion and lingering terror.
Then, she saw Ed sitting right there beside her.
She remembered everything.
The darkness, the suffocation, the absolute despair…
and then, the blinding light.
The boy who had charged into a nightmare just to break her chains.
“Ed…” Janica whispered, her voice cracking.
“I…
I failed.
I wanted to be strong for you.
I wanted to drop the dead weight, but I just became a burden again.
I almost killed everyone.”
Ed looked at her.
He didn’t offer a warm smile or a comforting embrace.
The King Grey persona remained stoic and practical, but the absolute frost in his gaze thawed just enough to show a steady, undeniable acknowledgment.
He reached out, picking up a cup of water from the bedside table, and handed it to her—a silent necessity for her severe mana exhaustion.
“You reached for a power you couldn’t control.
That was a tactical error,” Ed stated quietly, his tone flat but devoid of his usual icy edge.
“But you didn’t break, Janica.
A weak mage would have been consumed instantly.
You held onto your mind long enough for me to reach you.”
Janica blinked, taking the cup with trembling hands as tears spilled over her cheeks.
“You survived,” Ed continued, looking at her with genuine sincerity.
“That proves you aren’t dead weight.
Just…
don’t try to carry the entire academy’s expectations on your shoulders next time.
You don’t have to do it alone.”
Janica stared at him, her heart swelling with a profound, overwhelming warmth that chased away the lingering cold of the dark spirit.
He wasn’t suddenly becoming overly sweet or coddling her; he was speaking to her with a practical, unyielding honesty.
She knew absolutely nothing about the military mindset of a commander, nor did she care.
She only understood one thing perfectly: he truly valued her as an indispensable ally.
He had risked his life for her, and he was sitting by her bedside to make sure she was okay.
“I won’t,” Janica sobbed softly, wiping her eyes, a fragile but fiercely determined smile breaking through her tears.
“I promise, Ed.
I’ll get stronger…
properly this time.
So I can truly stand by your side.”
Ed gave a single, firm nod.
“Rest now.”
He stood up and walked toward the window, looking out at the academy grounds.
The board had fundamentally changed today.
Lortelle was looking at him not just as a business partner, but as someone she truly wanted to understand.
Taylee felt challenged by him.
Lucy had claimed him as an interesting puzzle.
And Janica…
Janica was safe.
In his past life, King Grey had pushed everyone away, manipulating his pieces purely for victory, which ultimately left him utterly alone on the throne.
In this life, looking at the sleeping girl and thinking of the strange interactions he just had, he realized his pragmatic approach was changing.
He wasn’t manipulating them; he was forging genuine bonds.
And perhaps, that would be his true strength.