Admiration
Admiration
I barely managed to squeeze out some reason and steady my voice.
It was still a dry, clipped tone, but compared to the intonation from just a moment ago, it was considerably calmer.
"I don't think further conversation is possible. So... leave, Licia Lowell. Go back to your room and regulate your mana alone. I will call for you when the time comes."
"M-Master... I, well... I-I'm sorry..."
The bold girl eventually lowered her head and muttered an apology in a voice no louder than a mosquito.
The girl's gaze, which had dropped to the floor, was trembling slightly.
Her white hand, which I had roughly swatted away just moments ago, was swollen and red, and a teardrop that hadn't quite managed to fall to the floor pooled on top of it.
All that remained was a young apprentice, terrified by her master's inexplicable outburst and rage, desperately holding her breath so as not to be abandoned.
Seeing that sight, a terrible sense of déjà vu tore mercilessly at my chest.
Ah, I see.
The image of this child, standing before me, fidgeting while waiting for my judgment without even knowing what she did wrong... it was terrifyingly similar to how I looked in the past, standing alone trying to uphold the treaty in front of those women who, under the influence of the ruins' curse, were drunk on men's semen and filth, mocking me as an incompetent bastard.
How desperately I had wished for it on that inn floor.
If only someone, anyone, would take my hand.
If only someone would recognize, just once, that desperate sense of powerlessness I felt as I was forced to be a bystander while my mana backflowed and my circuits tore from violating the treaty. I had wished, screaming silently every night, for someone to take away those looks of contempt and obsession poured upon me in that hellish silence, and just hold me warmly, telling me I had worked hard and that it wasn't my fault...
And yet, here I am.
What am I doing to this child who has no sin, who stands here purely out of admiration for me?
"Ha..."
A bitter, mocking laugh leaked from between my lips.
I had become the same monster as those bitches before I knew it.
Using the wounds I suffered as a shield, I had become an ugly perpetrator, mercilessly excreting the filth of my emotions onto an innocent person and hurting them.
Don't delude yourself, Rion.
You're just a coward with a completely broken heart, unable to take a single step forward, trapped by the ghosts of the past.
"Licia."
A very slight crack appeared in my dry voice.
"...Ah, yes! Yes, Master...!"
Licia flinched at my call and jerked her head up.
I took slow steps.
Tap, tap.
Every time my footsteps approached, Licia's shoulders flinched noticeably, but she didn't run away.
Like a child whose fear of losing me was greater than the fear that her master might kick her out of the Magic Tower, she stood her ground, fists clenched tight.
I approached right in front of the girl and slowly knelt on one knee.
The sound of my blue uniform's hem brushing against the marble floor settled low in the quiet laboratory.
An absurd composition was formed, with a master kneeling before an apprentice, but at this moment, I didn't care about such face.
"Mas... ter?"
Licia's gaze dropped. As our eye levels aligned, a single teardrop hanging from the girl's long eyelashes finally rolled down her cheek and fell.
I reached out quietly.
Swoosh.
My white, slender fingers were carefully placed amidst Licia's disheveled hair.
"...Uh?"
Licia opened her eyes cautiously. At my touch, gently cradling her head, her golden pupils wavered wildly, unable to find focus.
"...It is not your fault."
A bitter smile flowed from between my lips.
"Yes...?"
"The sentences you uttered contained no errors. You simply called me a hero and praised my past. It was the most perfect and undeserved respect an apprentice could offer a master."
Refined mana flowing from inside the ring flowed through my fingertips into the back of Licia's hand.
"So do not lower your head. There is not a single reason for you to apologize."
"But... because I brought up Serin-nim or the others' names... that's why Master was so..."
Licia choked up and sobbed. She was still trying to find the cause within herself.
That pure loyalty, that clean admiration, stabbed at my heart mercilessly.
"It is my problem."
I shook my head calmly.
"They... are no longer my party members. And I am not the great hero you think I am. I am just a cowardly and pathetic loser who ran away with a completely rotten heart."
Even though it was the moment I was exposing my own shame with my own mouth, strangely, my heart was calm.
"The fragments of those memories haven't healed yet, so I lost my reason over just three syllables of a name and persecuted you. I tried to pass the price of the sins committed by Dawn's Light onto you, who knows nothing. So the real monster is me, standing before you, Licia."
At my low confession, Licia's golden pupils wavered greatly.
It felt as if I could hear the illusion of Rion that existed in her head shattering in an instant.
The shock to the girl, facing the fact that the genius mage she worshipped so much was actually just a hollow, charred shell, must have been heavy.
It would have been fine if she pushed me away in disappointment.
Even if she despised the weak, disqualified human hiding behind the background of being the Magic Tower Master's disciple and left the room, I was prepared to accept it readily.
"...No, that's not true."
Licia's small knuckles gripped my hand tightly in return.
"Master... is not a loser. You are the one who wrote the thesis that taught me magic, and you are the only savior who tamed my flames. No matter what happened, to me, Mage Rion is my eternal Master."
The girl, leading her trembling body, took one step closer to me.
When I was experiencing the pain of my mana backflowing and my circuits tearing throughout my body in that hellish inn room.
When I had to become a bystander while watching them grab and shake men's genitals.
The terrible craving that constantly echoed inside me then.
I wanted someone to hold me.
I was craving, throughout that hell, the warmth of someone who would hold my torn heart warmly, telling me it wasn't my fault, that I didn't need to suffer because of that absurd treaty you made, and that I had just worked hard.
This child standing before me now was wounded and trembling, just like I was back then. Her heart torn because of the persecution I inflicted.
When my thoughts reached that point, my body moved before my reason.
"...I'm sorry, Licia."
I slowly raised my upper body and carefully pulled the sobbing girl standing before me into my arms.
Through the thick fabric of my blue uniform, her frail frame nestled softly into my embrace.
"...!"
Licia's breathing stopped roughly for a moment.
Swoosh.
The hem of my blue uniform gently wrapped around Licia's pure white apprentice robe.
"Mas... ter..."
Licia squeezed out a thin voice while burying her face in my chest.
"Stay still."
I whispered low, slowly stroking her hair.
"This is not for you. It is just... a selfish comfort for someone standing alone and crying, just like the past me."
At my dry monologue, Licia didn't ask any more questions.
Instead, she carefully raised her hands and wrapped them around my back. I could feel the girl's small fingers wiggling and gripping the hem of my uniform tightly.
It was warm.
Thump, thump, thump...
Whose is this heavy and steep heartbeat?
Licia Lowell felt the illusion that her entire body's senses were being paralyzed by the alien warmth transmitted through the thick fabric of the blue uniform.
Mas... ter.
She tried to move her lips, but the voice couldn't cross her throat and hovered at the tip of her tongue.
The girl's mind began to tangle with terrible confusion.
Just a few minutes ago, to Licia, the existence of Rion was an idol, a lighthouse worthy of looking up to like the North Star embedded in the night sky.
Innate flame mana that was born too hot and too vast.
None of the top-tier mages of the Lowell Count family could tame the flames running wild inside Licia's body.
To Licia, who had to spend her childhood in fear, Rion's 'Early Mana Circuit Control Theory,' published across the continent 12 years ago, was like salvation sent by God.
His thesis formulas that she had read hundreds, thousands of times until they wore out.
Every time she engraved those formulas into her heart one by one, Licia imagined.
Just how great, how dazzling, and how flawless must the genius mage who established this perfect and beautiful proposition be?
That admiration reached its peak when Rion wrote down his adventures as the leader of the 'Dawn's Light' party.
Behind Serin's sword, beside Elina's magic, and next to Miu, the image of Rion, who coordinated the party most perfectly, became admiration itself to Licia.
That is why when she chose him over hundreds of sages at the banquet yesterday, Licia was confident that all the luck in her life had come to her.
But...
"I told you to stop."
The master's voice, cold as a glacier splitting, and at the same time trembling precariously as if it would break at any moment, lingered in her ears.
What hurt more than the pain of her hand being roughly swatted away was the misery of being rejected by the being she admired so much.
When such fear assaulted her, Licia's vision truly went dark. She felt wronged.
Her chest felt like it would burst because she didn't know what she had done wrong, and at the same time, the guilt over the fact that she had made her master waver pressed down on her heart.
However.
Rion's subsequent actions shattered Licia's negative emotions in an instant.
Swoosh.
Along with the sound of the blue uniform's hem brushing the floor, when Rion, the direct disciple of the Magic Tower Master, knelt on one knee to match the eye level of herself, a mere new apprentice.
Licia thought her heart would stop right there.
In the strict hierarchy of the Magic Tower, it was impossible for a master to kneel before an apprentice.
Furthermore, his subsequent touch was so soft and careful that no trace of him roughly swatting her away moments ago could be found.
The sensation of slender fingers carefully digging into and stroking her hair.
"...It is not your fault."
That low-ringing voice was filled only with deep self-mockery and bitter repentance toward himself.
"They... are no longer my party members. And I am not the great hero you think I am. I am just a cowardly and pathetic loser who ran away with a completely rotten heart."
Ah...
Licia looked at her master with her mouth open in shock that chilled her to the bone.
It was the moment the illusion shattered.
The confession that the man she thought was the North Star shining loftily in the night sky was actually an empty shell left with only ashes after being burnt to the bone.
A master who admits he is a monster, saying he excreted the filth of his emotions onto an innocent apprentice because of the wounds he suffered.
That honest and desperate apology rather made Licia's heart heavy.
Disappointment? Disillusionment?
No, it wasn't such trivial emotions.
It was a terrible thirst to fully understand this broken man.
Thump.
Licia's heart pounded violently once.
And then Rion's low whisper that tickled her ears.
The voice was so sorrowful and precarious that I tightened my grip with the small fingers that were wrapped around his back.
Thump, thump, thump...
The slowly repeating heartbeat seemed to be getting faster.
I couldn't tell if this was my heartbeat or the heartbeat of the Master who was holding me.
Just a little longer...
I want to be buried in this embrace just a little longer.
As that blasphemous and secret impulse raised its head, Licia felt her cheeks burning.
If they had abandoned Master. If those people had betrayed this man and thrown him into the gutter.
...I would rather.
Licia buried her face deeper into Master's chest, not wanting this blasphemous wish to be discovered.