The autumn wind blew with unusual force that night, howling through the Northern Forest.
The canopies of the centennial trees thrashed violently, casting down showers of dry leaves that danced wildly around the campsite.
In front of the warm campfire, whose orange glow fought fiercely against the encroaching, dense darkness, Ed Rothtaylor finished adjusting the leather straps of his heavy black coat.
Seated on his usual carved log, Ed maintained an impeccable posture, his back straight and his shoulders relaxed yet highly alert.
At his waist, secured firmly, rested the black tactical katana he had just acquired from the multiversal chat.
His right hand gently stroked the hilt, which was wrapped in a black, anti-slip synthetic polymer.
The heavy weight of the weapon was both comforting and familiar.
In his past life—in a world where power was measured by the purity of one’s Ki and absolute technical prowess—he had wielded swords forged by the greatest master craftsmen of his nation.
He was accustomed to flawless tools.
And yet, the cold, austere perfection of this modern tungsten alloy from New Eridu conveyed a sense of sheer efficiency that few weapons had ever managed to match.
It had no useless ornaments, no jewels embedded in the pommel, no extravagant engravings; it was a tool designed exclusively to fulfill its function without fail.
It was exactly what he needed for tonight’s assignment.
Ed closed his eyes, regulating his breathing.
He wanted to isolate his mind and enter that state of absolute concentration he used before any serious confrontation—a state where distractions faded away, leaving only the pure, unfiltered analysis of the situation at hand.
Tonight’s plan required precision.
Lortelle was paying him an exorbitant sum not for his raw physical strength, but for his ability to control a very specific variable within Ophelius Hall.
However, before he could fully submerge himself into his own mental void, the unmistakable crunch of boots stepping on dry branches shattered the silence of the night.
Ed’s senses flared immediately.
His hand brushed the pommel of his katana, but he relaxed the muscles in his arm almost instantly upon identifying the mana fluctuation.
It was not a physical threat, nor was it an arrogant student looking for trouble in the woods.
“Ed…?
Are you busy?”
The voice was soft, sweet, and slightly hesitant.
Ed turned with a fluid motion to find Yenika Fael.
The brilliant, ever-cheerful spirit tamer stood at the edge of the campsite, rubbing her hands together against the biting cold of the night.
She was wearing her academy uniform, and a faint blush tinted her cheeks, likely caused by the brisk night walk to his cabin.
“Janica,” Ed greeted, keeping his tone neutral and expressionless.
His analytical mind immediately recognized that a visit at this hour of the night was highly unusual.
“I am just about to head out.
I have a matter to attend to in the academic district.”
“Oh…
I see.
I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to interrupt you,” Janica smiled with her usual endearing sweetness, taking a tentative step toward the small but sturdy wooden cabin Ed had built.
“I was just stopping by to say hello after a long study session at the library.
I wanted to see if you had a little time to…”
Janica’s voice died in her throat.
The cutoff was so abrupt it seemed as if someone had physically snatched the ability to speak right out of her lungs.
Her eyes, normally brimming with a warm, compassionate, and lively sparkle, locked onto the interior of the cabin, which was dimly illuminated by the glow of the outdoor campfire.
There, curled up peacefully under Ed’s thick blanket, rolled into a small ball with her gigantic witch’s hat half-falling off, and breathing steadily onto the pillow, was Lucy Mayrill.
The prodigy mage was sleeping so deeply and looked so incredibly comfortable in that space that anyone would swear the bed belonged to her by inherent right.
She let out a faint, rhythmic snore that was, frankly, almost comical.
The silence that followed in the campsite was absolute, dense, and suffocating.
Not even the nocturnal insects of the forest seemed to dare make a sound.
The crackling of the fire suddenly felt far too loud.
The ambient temperature seemed to plummet all at once.
Ed, whose instincts were honed to the absolute maximum after years of surviving at the apex of politics and martial duels in his past life, noticed the drastic shift in air pressure immediately.
The light completely vanished from Janica’s eyes.
Her tender, hesitant posture dissolved in a fraction of a second, replaced by an unnatural, rigid stillness.
When the girl slowly turned her face toward him, her gaze was profoundly unsettling: empty, dark, and devoid of any trace of the warmth that usually characterized her.
It was the look of someone who had entirely bypassed logical reasoning.
All around her, the spiritual mana of the forest began to swirl erratically, as if an invisible storm were about to break over the trees.
The lesser elemental spirits, who normally frolicked around her, quickly hid themselves away.
“Ed…” Janica whispered.
Her voice was no longer that of the cheerful second-year student; it was monotone, hollow, and dangerously calm.
“How often…
does Lucy sleep in your bed?”
Ed Rothtaylor suppressed an imperceptible sigh.
Despite having ruled an entire nation in his past life, having navigated the most lethal intrigues of royal courts, and having crossed swords with the most skilled martial artists of his time without his pulse ever trembling, he felt a genuine chill run down the back of his neck.
‘For the love of reason…’ Ed thought, forcing his facial muscles to maintain an expressionless, flawless mask of calm.
There is no sword or defensive technique in the world that can deflect the bad mood of a spiritual mage of her caliber.
If I give a single wrong answer or hesitate for a second, the sheer pressure of her mana is going to set the cabin on fire.’
“She is like a stray cat, Janica,” Ed replied, measuring every syllable, every inflection of his voice, and every gesture with the surgical precision of a diplomat.
“She comes here when it’s cold because the cabin insulates the wind well, she falls asleep on the first soft spot she finds, and she does not listen to reason.
Truthfully, I pay absolutely no attention to her, and she pays no attention to me.
As I mentioned a moment ago, I have an urgent contract to fulfill at the academy tonight and I am already running short on time.
I must leave right now.”
Without waiting to see if his explanation had taken effect, and moving with a tactical swiftness that prioritized avoiding unnecessary conflict, Ed turned his back on her.
He channeled a thin but incredibly dense layer of his orange mana into his legs, activating the Mirage Step movement technique in perfect synchronization with the Wind Essence.
His figure blurred agilely in the freezing air, disappearing among the dark trunks of the forest at breakneck speed, leaving behind only a gust of wind that rustled the loose leaves.
Back at the campsite, Janica was left entirely alone standing in front of the campfire, her gaze still fixed on the cabin and the sleeping Lucy.
She clenched her fists at the sides of her skirt until her joints ached.
A highly uncomfortable mixture of jealousy, indignation, and a deep, gnawing worry regarding Ed’s sudden and evasive haste began to churn in her chest.
“An urgent contract in the academic district in the middle of the night,” he had said.
Janica’s mind, clouded by emotions, couldn’t help but conjure up dozens of scenarios.
She definitely wasn’t going to be able to return to her dorm and sleep peacefully tonight.
She needed to know what Ed was doing.
Far from the isolation of the Northern Forest, in the elegant, pristine, and meticulously manicured gardens of the noble district, the imposing structure of Ophelius Hall rose toward the night sky.
Its white marble walls gleamed under the pale moonlight, and its immense stained-glass windows reflected the sheer opulence of the aristocracy residing within.
It was the pinnacle of Sylvania’s pride.
Tonight, however, the aura surrounding the building was completely different.
Ed emerged silently from the shadows of the tall hedges that lined the perimeter of the outer walls.
His footsteps on the manicured lawn made not a single sound.
There were no disturbances yet, but the tension in the atmosphere was palpable.
Ed, with his acute sensitivity to the flow of energy, could feel how the arcane circuits embedded in the Hall’s foundations were beginning to awaken.
The magic of the ancient defensive wards hummed in the underground, preparing to completely isolate the structure.
“You’re right on time, excommunicated noble.
I’ll give you credit for your punctuality.”
Ed halted his advance immediately and shifted his gaze toward a particularly dark corner of the gardens.
Lortelle Kehelland stepped out of the shadows, walking with a relaxed grace.
She wore her expensive tailored coat and her usual, astute merchant’s smile, but her eyes betrayed an intense, highly-focused adrenaline.
She was one step away from executing one of the riskiest financial maneuvers the Elte Company had ever seen.
“The deal still stands, Lortelle,” Ed said calmly, resting his left hand casually on the guard of his katana.
“The wards are about to close.
Cut to the chase.
What is the exact infiltration plan, and what is my role in all of this?”
Lortelle let out a small, melodic laugh, delighted by her interlocutor’s strictly professional attitude.
She slipped a slender hand into the inner pocket of her coat and pulled out an ancient, elaborately adorned key made of magical metal.
She tossed it through the air in a perfect arc.
Ed didn’t take his eyes off Lortelle’s face; he simply raised his right hand and caught the key mid-air with a swift motion, feeling the slight tingle of authorization magic against his fingertips.
“That is the master key to the massive south garden gates,” Lortelle explained, her smile turning much sharper.
“Inside the Hall, the Head Maid, Ellis, is about to activate the defenses and secure the building for me.
With the building on lockdown, I will be able to move toward my objective without any meddlesome nobles interfering.
But we have a logistical problem.
If we do this in total silence, the teaching staff will notice the ward and they might intervene too quickly to investigate.
We need a distraction.
Something loud and chaotic that keeps the guards busy looking in the wrong direction.”
Ed looked at the key in his hand and then glanced back up at Lortelle, rapidly analyzing the strategy.
“Outside those south walls,” Lortelle continued, nodding her head toward the iron gates in the distance, “there are hundreds of students from the lower dormitories.
Dex Hall and other minor buildings.
Commoners, scholarship students, and disgraced nobles who feel a deep-seated resentment toward the privileges of the Ophelius residents.
They have been gathering there for the last few minutes, angered by the rumors of the lockdown.
They are a powder keg waiting to blow.
Your job, Ed, is to give them exactly what they want.
Go to the south gates and use the key.
Open them.
Let them in.”
Ed’s cold gray eyes narrowed slightly in the dim light.
His mind evaluated the pragmatic brutality of the tactic.
Using the student masses as a distraction to saturate the location’s defenses.
Letting the mob crash head-on against the magical statues and the building’s maids, creating a severe chokepoint on the ground floor, while she secured the high-value target in the safety of the basements.
‘Pragmatism at its finest,’ Ed thought, feeling a genuine respect for the young merchant’s intellect.
‘She doesn’t care in the slightest how many lower-class students end up expelled tomorrow, nor how many of them get injured by the security mechanisms, as long as she gets her documents.
She is a natural-born strategist.’
“I will handle the distraction,” Ed nodded with total tranquility, slipping the heavy magical key into his coat.
“I understand the flow of the plan.
After opening the gates and letting the students in, I will take position in the main corridor of the upper wing—the one that connects directly to the entrance of the stairs leading down to the vaults.
I will block that access point.
No one will go down there while you are resolving your end of the deal.”
“You are a truly excellent business partner, Ed Rothtaylor,” Lortelle purred, turning elegantly toward one of the small service entrances hidden among the building’s masonry.
“Do your part and make sure you come out unscathed.
I hate losing valuable assets.”
Lortelle vanished into the dense darkness of the service entrance, walking with a firm step and entirely alone into the interior of the majestic building, utterly confident in her imminent victory.
Ed watched her go without his expression changing a single millimeter.
According to commercial logic and the data on the table, the girl’s plan was flawless.
However, there was no way for Ed to know that, at that precise moment, deep within the bowels of that gigantic building, Head Maid Ellis was not waiting for Lortelle to docilely hand over the information.
Ellis had been corrupted by the staggering amount of gold Lortelle carried with her—money she desperately needed to keep the orphanages she sponsored afloat.
And in a complete twist of events, she had secretly allied herself with Elte Kehelland, Lortelle’s own adoptive father, to lay an inescapable trap.
Ellis was fully prepared to ambush the young merchant in private, steal her fortune, and leave her cornered in the underground while the building collapsed.
But Ed, completely ignorant of the backstabbing brewing in the basements, firmly believed his sponsor had absolute control over her side of the board.
He only needed to focus on fulfilling his assignment.
Without wasting another second, Ed turned and walked swiftly toward the immense, massive doors on the south side of the complex.
Even from fifty meters away, the dense, furious murmuring of the crowd gathered on the other side of the iron bars could be heard clearly.
There were roughly a hundred students, complaining about the lack of equity, cursing the Ophelius administration, and loudly demanding access to the facilities.
The social resentment within the academy was at its absolute peak.
Ed arrived in front of the immense, reinforced oak doors.
He inserted the heavy magical key into the main lock.
The complex arcane gears and security deadbolts turned with a dull, heavy, and definitive clack that echoed in the night air.
CLACK.
Applying the brute strength of his trained body, Ed pushed the immense doors, swinging them wide open.
The rioting crowd on the other side fell completely silent for a single second.
The students blinked, utterly surprised and disoriented to see a single first-year student, dressed in a rustic black leather coat and possessing an unbothered gaze, deliberately opening the way for them into the territory they had always been denied.
“The path is open,” Ed said, his icy voice cutting through the collective murmur as he calmly stepped aside, gesturing slightly toward the expansive interior gardens.
It was exactly like pulling the cork from a highly pressurized bottle.
Order disintegrated entirely.
A deafening roar of triumph and pent-up fury rose toward the sky, and hundreds of lower-class students surged like an uncontrollable tide into the immaculate grounds of Ophelius Hall.
They ran over the manicured lawns, trampled the magical flora, and charged toward the building’s main doors without an ounce of restraint.
Almost immediately, the building’s magical intrusion alarms reacted.
The security seals flared with red and blue lights.
The imposing marble statues that decorated the edges of the pathways came to life with a bone-chilling grinding of stone, moving to block the students’ path.
From the main doors, squads of highly trained maids mobilized in perfect formation, raising magical barriers to repel the horde.
The panicked screams, the sound of elemental spells colliding in the air, and the dull thud of physical impacts completely filled the night.
It was an absolute, disorganized, and noisy chaos that would quickly attract the attention of the entire school campus.
The perfect distraction.
Blatantly ignoring the pandemonium unfolding all around him, Ed Rothtaylor walked with a calm, rhythmic, and terrifyingly focused pace toward one of the building’s side entrances.
Anyone who happened to pass too close to him felt instinctively compelled to step aside, overwhelmed by the crushing pressure and intent he radiated.
Ed moved through the chaos with the fluidity of someone deeply accustomed to navigating unruly crowds.
Upon entering the main vestibule, which was already sustaining damage from errant spells, Ed headed straight for the service stairs.
Thanks to his razor-sharp reflexes and his precise control of mana, he ascended the steps, dodging the initial paralysis seals and arcane traps with an ease that bordered on insulting.
Finally, he reached his planned destination: the wide, absurdly opulent hallway of the upper floor.
This corridor was the only direct access point connecting the main staircases to the route toward the underground vaults.
The floor was covered by a thick crimson-red carpet, and the walls were adorned with portraits of former headmasters, softly illuminated by fine crystal chandeliers.
Ed stopped in the exact center of the hallway.
He slowly brought his right hand to the hilt of his katana and, with a measured, deliberate motion, unsheathed just a couple of inches of steel.
The faint, lethal, and constant electrical hum of the modern alloy resonated in the hallway—a sharp contrast to the classical magic of the environment.
Everything was in position.
His blockade was ready, and the clock was ticking.
Now, all that was left was to wait.
Whoever tried to come up those stairs and cross this hallway was about to receive a severe and painful lesson on what it meant to face an opponent who truly dominated the control of space.