After confirming the woman’s face, Kaian rubbed his eyes in confusion.
He even began to wonder if he was trapped in a dream.
‘I've never heard of elves having horns….’
While he was still bewildered, the woman closed her book and raised her head.
Her jewel-like, cold blue eyes stared as if they could pierce straight through Kaian.
“Hmm… That is a rather crude weapon to point at the one who saved your life.”
Kaian flinched and took a step backward.
It was because of the woman’s voice.
Her voice was clear and mysterious.
A beautiful sound unlike anything he had ever heard before.
However, there was not a single trace of emotion within it.
The strangely emotionless voice made Kaian raise his guard once again.
But he had no idea what he should say first.
“I….”
He had intended to ask about his family first.
But he felt that if he let that question leave his mouth, he would immediately regret it.
Without even being fully aware of his own judgment, Kaian changed his question.
“…Who are you?! Reveal your identity! Where did you bring me?!”
He tried to imitate his father and brothers’ manner of speaking as much as possible, but even to his own ears, it sounded somewhat awkward.
The woman gave a smile that was not quite a smile.
“Who am I? That is quite a difficult question. Why does the guest not reveal himself first? Who are you?”
Kaian’s hand gripping the candlestick trembled slightly.
‘She called me a guest. Does that mean she isn’t one of them?’
He gathered his courage and glanced around.
The interior, filled with wooden furniture, looked like an ordinary household.
Kaian suppressed his confusion and began thinking.
‘Those people were definitely trying to kill me.’
But right now, he was alive and well in this place.
Based on observation and deduction, Kaian asked a more specific question.
“The ones chasing me… the attackers. Where are they?”
The woman took a sip of tea placed on the desk.
In the space filled with tense silence, the sound of the teacup being set down felt strangely loud.
“They say humans are creatures of forgetfulness. Have you already forgotten?”
Kaian thrust the brass candlestick threateningly into the air.
“I have no interest in that kind of riddle! Speak so I can understand!”
“It seems humans are ill-mannered from childhood. Well, it does not matter. At least your vocabulary appears decent, so that is fortunate.”
“What does that even mean…?! Answer me! Where are they?!”
“You burned them all to death.”
The woman casually said it while sipping her tea.
“What…?”
“Did you not hear me? I said you burned them all to death.”
Fragmented memories surfaced in Kaian’s mind again.
The blue-green mana flickering around his left arm.
Himself swinging that arm behind him with all his strength.
The screams of the attackers.
And the orange heat that had driven him deeper into the forest….
“No….”
Kaian muttered.
His eyes trembled even more than before.
“No. They wouldn’t have given up so easily! They must have sent a second wave…!”
The woman frowned slightly.
“You are noisy.”
“Ghk…!”
Kaian’s breath caught.
From the woman’s brief warning, he felt an enormous amount of mana that he could never hope to comprehend even after a lifetime.
Like a rabbit beneath a giant’s foot, his body shrank back.
And only then did he clearly realize.
‘I awakened my mana…!’
Those who had not awakened their mana could not sense another person’s mana, no matter how powerful it was.
But now, Kaian’s body was trembling like prey standing before a predator.
“You asked where this place was.”
The woman spoke in that same clear voice.
“This place is Eldergrove. It is my subspace. Mages wrapped in crude toys like the ones chasing you would not even be able to find it. So you may rest assured.”
Kaian barely managed to continue breathing.
And he forced his mind, which wanted to freeze from fear, to keep moving.
‘Rest assured…? That is a strange thing to say. How am I supposed to feel safe in this situation?’
Yet somewhere deep inside, hope inevitably began to bloom.
Did telling him to rest assured mean all danger was over?
If so, could he finally ask about his family?
With the feeling that he would regret it, Kaian finally opened his mouth.
“Then, my family—”
“Dead.”
It was a short and clear verdict.
Just as Kaian’s lips moved to deny it, the woman’s emotionless voice pierced deep into his lungs like a blade.
“This time, ask about something you do not know.”
It was a sharp rebuke.
A reminder that he already knew his family was dead.
A condemnation of his foolish hope and attempt to escape reality.
Kaian’s body trembled with humiliation and anger.
At the same time, the memories he had desperately buried until now unfolded in his mind.
The woman asked bluntly.
“Or do you wish to go to your family’s side?”
Kaian’s heart felt as though it was being torn out.
A scream that he could not contain erupted from the depths of his stomach.
“AAAAAAAH!”
At that moment.
Blue-green mana began violently surging from Kaian’s left wrist.
The thick brass candlestick he had been gripping began melting away.
—SIZZLE!
The woman, Eldarin, who saw the sight, showed a strange glimmer in her eyes.
‘Oh? Blue-green.’
The mana used by mages was broadly divided into three types.
Green light: intellect.
Blue light: creativity.
Red light: willpower.
Mages who used one of these three types accounted for a full 95% of all mages.
The proportion of “multi-mana users,” those capable of using two or more types of mana, was only 5%.
And the blue-green mana displayed by the child before her was a combination of intellect and creativity.
In other words, it was a combination possessed by 3% of that 5% of multi-mana users.
However, Eldarin could see it.
The red mana writhing near Kaian’s heart, still beyond his control.
‘Could it be… that willpower is also dormant within him?’
The percentage of mages capable of using all three types of mana was only 0.5%.
Eldarin finally smiled sincerely.
‘To see talent of this level… It has been 700 years.’
From the moment a human child broke through Eldergrove’s barrier and entered, she had known he would not be ordinary.
However, Kaian’s talent exceeded even Eldarin’s expectations.
—Rumble.
Space trembled.
The intense heat pouring out from Kaian burned the air inside the room in an instant.
—CRACK!
The teacup on the bedside table exploded, and the thick oak floor began turning black.
Yet Eldarin remained seated, merely observing Kaian with interest.
More precisely, she was watching the flames surging within his inner world.
‘That child forcibly materialized the anger filling his inner world.’
Magic was the realization of a mage’s inner world into reality.
To accomplish that, one needed a deep understanding of both their own inner world and the real world.
But the child before her did not even seem aware of his own inner world yet.
‘Did he accomplish this unconsciously? Impressive.’
—WHOOSH!
Kaian’s eyes gradually turned bloodshot before losing focus.
When the reason he had barely managed to hold onto snapped away, only the destructive instinct and survival instinct from the moment he burned the forest remained.
The molten brass flowed down his hand.
“I’ll kill you… I’ll burn everything…!”
—RATATAT!
Eldarin casually flicked away the fragments flying toward her.
‘Dangerous. But….’
A faint, knowing smile appeared at the corner of her lips.
‘What overwhelming talent.’
The child before her could not even perceive his own inner world, yet he instantly converted his sorrow and rage into destructive energy.
‘This child is enough. I can awaken him as a hero.’
Eldarin finally made her decision.
She raised her index finger and lightly pressed the air.
“[Calm down.]”
As if an invisible hand of a giant was pressing down on the entire room, tremendous pressure covered Kaian.
—THUD!
The rising flames vanished in an instant, and the trembling space became quiet as if nothing had happened.
Faced with such an overwhelming difference in power, Kaian’s knees buckled.
“Ghk!”
The hand supporting him on the floor trembled.
As his reason returned, so did the pain.
Eldarin silently rose from her chair and approached Kaian.
“Anger is certainly a powerful force. But if you cannot control it, it will only harm yourself.”
With a white hand that seemed as though it could shine at any moment, she grabbed Kaian’s burned hand.
“Ugh!”
A wave of coldness flowed through their touching skin, cooling the heat gathered within him.
Even his overheated mind seemed to cool along with it.
Kaian lowered his head and breathed roughly.
A liquid that might have been tears or sweat fell onto the charred floor.
—Tap, tap….
Eldarin asked Kaian.
“Do you desire power?”
Kaian raised his head with a puzzled expression.
Eldarin’s unreadable blue eyes stared directly at him.
‘What… did she just ask? If I want power? Is she not going to kill me…?’
Kaian lowered his head again.
Closing both eyes, he focused on reconstructing the situation.
‘Cool your head. Think calmly.’
Eldarin reduced her mana presence so that he could think properly.
Though Kaian, lost in thought, failed to notice even that consideration.
‘…The ones who attacked were not just some ordinary noble family. They attacked Valentin.’
House Valentin was unquestionably the emperor’s right hand.
Attacking such a house was no different from rebellion.
The enemy clearly did not fear the imperial family.
‘And that overwhelming number of forces….’
It was a scale of resources that could not be gathered with ordinary wealth.
In other words, the enemy possessed enormous capital while not fearing the emperor.
They could be considered those standing at the true peak of imperial power.
Such people had attempted to eliminate the Valentin family, a house known as a pillar of the emperor’s faction.
‘For what reason? Did we become an obstacle to them? Did they do something like this over something so trivial?’
But the most important fact was this:
They had failed to completely erase Valentin from the world.
‘I survived. Do they know that?’
Kaian had no intention of politely disappearing into the shadows of history according to the enemy’s wishes.
Valentin was the border and shield of the empire.
A great symbol of magic that must never fall.
Deep within his heart, he engraved the names of those who truly deserved to disappear from the world.
‘I will survive. And I will reveal their true faces to the entire world.’
However, to punish those standing at the peak of the empire, he needed power beyond common sense.
‘I do not know what this horned elf’s identity is… but one thing is certain. She is strong.’
Now that he had awakened his mana, he could tell.
The mana she emitted was far more profound than that of his father or mother, who had been called the empire’s greatest mages.
‘And this place… Eldergrove, was it? It really does seem safe from the attackers.’
Above all, he felt no intention of killing him from the horned elf.
For now, that was enough.
Whether he could trust her or not was a matter for later.
First, he needed to hide himself and grow stronger.
Having reached his answer, Kaian raised his head.
The woman was still watching him with those strange blue eyes.
But there was no longer any hesitation in Kaian’s gaze as he looked back at her.
“I want power. I want to become strong. Strong enough to change this entire world…!”
As if that was the correct answer, Eldarin smiled.
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