Chapter 23: Winter Preparations(6)

Closing the door behind her, Avalli stepped outside and looked around. Hans was nowhere in sight, but… as soon as she focused, she knew exactly where he was.

“Why are you hiding, Hans?”
“You’re unnervingly observant.”

Hans emerged from behind a large tree, a disgruntled look on his face. He often tried to surprise Avalli, hoping to one-up her, but his attempts always failed.

“I’ve never succeeded.”
“Maybe you’re just slow, Hans? I could see your arm sticking out.”
“Really?”

Avalli nodded, lying smoothly.

She hadn’t seen his arm. Hans’s hiding spot had been perfect. Avalli simply knew where he was. It was as natural as breathing.

“So, what did you want to say?”
“…Nothing.”
“The chief told me. You said you had something to tell me.”

Hans frowned at Avalli’s words.

“…The Chief’s too much of a gossip sometimes.”

He muttered, hesitated for a moment, then spoke with newfound resolve.

“You can come watch my training.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t mean it when I said you couldn’t come anymore.”

Hans said, fiddling with his bangs. Avalli immediately understood the boy’s unspoken feelings.

“Hmmmmm?”

A playful smile spread across her face as she clasped her hands behind her back. She leaned forward slightly, looking up at Hans, who avoided her gaze shyly.

“What do you mean, Hans?”
“…Just what I said.”
“Weren’t you saying you couldn’t stand the sight of me? What made you change your mind?”
“Well…”

He couldn’t answer. He wasn’t smooth enough to casually say something as embarrassing as, ‘I couldn’t focus without you watching, Avalli.’

So, Hans swallowed his words and continued avoiding her gaze, while Avalli followed his face with her eyes.

‘This little guy is so cute.’

When Avalli was Hans’s age, back when she was a ‘boy’, she wasn’t this pure. She had been a jaded little old man, constantly complaining, ‘I don’t want to grow old. I want to stay a teenager forever, free from responsibilities.’

“Aren’t you going to answer?”
“Ugh…”

Perhaps that’s why she enjoyed teasing Hans so much. People were drawn to those different from themselves.

Of course, there wasn’t a single grain of romantic interest in her actions. To Avalli, Hans was just a cute kid who was fun to tease.

“Well, whatever. I can already guess what you’re thinking.”
“…You can?”

Hans asked, a strange tension in his voice.

“Yeah. You need someone to cheer you on, right?”

Her answer was completely different from what he had expected.

“Huh…?”
“Am I wrong? Or is it…?”
“No! You’re right!”

Hans hurriedly waved his hands and nodded as Avalli trailed off.

“Y…Yeah! I… I need someone to cheer me on to get motivated.”

It was only good manners, as an adult, to give him an out. She had to protect the boy’s innocence, after all.

“Right? Don’t worry, Hans. I’ll cheer you on.”
“…Thanks.”

Hans, breathing a silent sigh of relief, finally calmed down and spoke again.

“…Then I’ll be going.”
“Weren’t you done for the day? The Chief’s at Bern’s house.”
“…I can train alone. Anyway, make sure you come tomorrow.”
“Okay, Hans. See you tomorrow.”

Avalli waved as Hans, his face beet red, hurried away. After he disappeared from sight, a smile crept onto her face.

‘Unexpected.’

She had assumed he would be attracted to her silver-haired form. Just a month ago, he had been lovesick, captivated by the memory of that dreamlike night. But judging by his current reaction, he seemed to have developed feelings for her current, more ordinary appearance.

‘…He’s aiming for something attainable, I guess?’

Or perhaps it was similar to how, during school days, the popular kids were often the friendly and playful ones, rather than the exceptionally beautiful ones.

‘I should tone it down from now on.’

Although she looked young, Avalli’s mental age was far greater than Hans’s. Toying with a boy’s innocent feelings wasn’t very adult of her.

If things got serious and he actually confessed… it would be awkward living in such a small village. She needed to establish firm boundaries and reframe their relationship as ‘close friends’.

‘Yeah, sorry about that, Hans.’

Unbeknownst to him, Hans had just achieved a zero-confession, first-rejection milestone.

Winter was cold. And the mages’ Magic Tower was no exception.

500 years ago, at the end of the war, the Magic Tower was a symbol of the mages’ continued power and influence.

So they had competed to build the tallest and most magnificent towers, but… the interiors were poorly constructed.

This was especially true for the higher floors where the high-ranking mages resided. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and difficult to heat properly, these spaces were far from comfortable. They were essentially shoddily built areas with terrible living conditions.

But for mages who had surpassed a certain level, such inconveniences were trivial matters. Complaints about cold, heat, or any other discomfort were for young mages still tethered to worldly concerns.

For high-ranking mages, the only thing worth focusing on was the pursuit of knowledge.

“Beautiful.”

Zafar said, gazing at the magical device in the center of his lab. It was a computational device that read the flow of magic power from the stars and predicted the future.

‘Astrolabe.’

It had apparently been quite common before the Great War 700 years ago… but now, it was a rare artifact. The blueprints weren’t difficult to obtain, so countless mages and magic scholars were attempting to recreate it, but… successful activations were extremely rare.

The longest recorded activation was a mere ten minutes. It needed to run for at least 24 hours to read the future, so the technology was practically lost.

“Did you say it’s been running for over an hour, Zafar?”
“Indeed, Pel. It just passed 72 minutes.”
“…Do you think it will actually work?”

Clear Pel, a professor at the Magic Tower, asked, gulping. If the Astrolabe could truly be activated, the power dynamics of the entire continent could shift overnight. Magic that manipulated time had world-altering potential.

“No, it’s probably impossible.” But Zafar calmly predicted the failure of his attempt.

“It’s a miracle that it’s working at all, thanks to that extraordinary component. This is probably its limit.”
“You mean that magic stone?”

Zafar nodded at Pel’s question. It was the top-grade magic stone that had caused such a stir in East Polis, the city on the eastern edge of the continent, for weeks.

Zafar was the one who had ultimately purchased that magic stone. Of course, only a select few within the Magic Tower knew this.

Specifically, only Zafar himself and his close friend, Pel.
The merchant who brokered the auction, Elif, had long been silenced by a confidentiality agreement.

“As expected, it’s stopped.”

He had successfully miniaturized the celestial structure, but the Astrolabe’s movement had ceased abruptly.

“…It’s truly perplexing. The blueprints are flawless, but no matter how I build it, it won’t run.”

Professor Pel had also tried to build an Astrolabe in his younger days. It had been so well-made that even other experts were surprised, but it had stopped after only three minutes.

He had dedicated several more years to the project, but all his attempts ended in failure. Pel had given up on restoring the Astrolabe and switched his specialization to a new field.

“I agree, Pel. But this attempt has given me a new perspective.”
“Tell me.”
“If the design is flawless and the construction is perfect, then, as a machine, it should function. But if no one has succeeded for hundreds of years, perhaps the problem lies elsewhere.”
“…The power source?”

Zafar smiled, a reptilian glint in his eyes, at Pel’s words.

“…If we could obtain more magic stones of that purity, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible.”
“So that’s why you called me.”

Pel shrugged.

Pel was a professor specializing in Lithomancy, the study of magic stones.
Since Pel had posted a notice about exploring the newly discovered dungeon, Zafar would have naturally heard about it.

“I’m counting on you, Pel. We’re friends, after all.”
“I’ll give you first dibs on any I find, as long as you don’t lowball me too much. Although I doubt I’ll find anything of that purity.”

Pel said, gazing at the jet-black magic stone embedded in the center of the Astrolabe.

‘Beautiful.’

Any mage would utter the same sentiment upon seeing that magic stone. How had such a miraculous object appeared in the world? And not in the heart of the continent, but here in East Polis, a remote city on the periphery.

“…What do you plan to calculate once the Astrolabe is complete?”
“Well, I used to have specific events I wanted to know about…”

Zafar stroked his well-groomed beard.

“But for now, its completion itself is my goal.”

A strange madness flickered in Zafar’s eyes as he spoke calmly.