Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: #17 Changes (1)
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Amelia strolled alone through the quiet academy.
Trinity Academy was quiet by nature, but the silence deepened at night.
If the weather had been a touch milder, she might have heard the soft whispers of crickets.
That was the only thing she found a little regrettable.
"Why does this keep happening..."
A walk meant to lift her spirits.
Yet thoughts of one man kept resurfacing, and Amelia bit her lip.
It wasn't entirely unprecedented.
Their unique encounters and bond were enough to bring him to mind now and then.
When she hit a wall in her magic research and reached for a cigarette, or when sorting lesson materials...
Each time, she'd seek him out on some pretext and issue various orders.
She simply didn't know how to steer conversations beyond work.
Looking back, she couldn't deny that she'd wanted to keep talking with him.
Why?
Why was that?
Was it merely because he was so diligent that she wanted to stay close?
Even when she subtly pressed Sophia for answers, all she got was an ambiguous smile.
Sophia never shared anything truly important.
"Pathetic."
What a pitiful sight she made.
She could unravel any question about magic, yet human relationships were a mystery shrouded in unknowns.
She wondered if there were even fixed answers.
Her steps had no destination.
The thoughts cluttering her mind centered on Siwoo, and as she wandered aimlessly with him in her head, she'd come quite far.
The moonlit landscape felt a bit unfamiliar compared to the sunlit version, but it was that familiar low hill.
This was where he'd lived in the stable all these years.
For five whole years, no less.
"........."
Suddenly, her mouth tasted bitter.
What if he learned this bitterness stemmed from Amelia's own foul mood?
He'd probably be furious.
Amelia followed the winding path over the hill toward the stable.
-Creak!
Opening the rickety wooden door—which barely served its purpose—revealed a spacious, rundown stable.
"Ugh...!"
Her chest suddenly stung.
Like a blunt needle prodding her heart over and over.
It was regret.
And with it came a cascade of thoughts.
"Isn't everything else like this too?"
This was just what she'd seen with her own eyes.
Perhaps the many orders she'd tossed his way in frustration had been harsher than she'd imagined?
Had she made him suffer far more than intended?
The fear gripped her.
Now she thought she understood.
Why Siwoo kept such distance.
Why he always responded ambiguously to her gifts and considerations.
Why she'd unconsciously avoided him while growing close to the twins.
She'd been far too complacent.
Thinking only of her own situation, throwing a childish tantrum.
It was improper.
If something was wrong, she had to set it right.
As she paced, reflecting on her past mistakes, something caught her eye.
Beside the ditch running through the stable's center was a pile of straw he'd used as a bed.
Probably hay he'd scavenged somewhere as horse feed.
"Here... for five years..."
Amelia slowly crouched down and sat atop the straw pile.
She couldn't gauge the discomfort just from looking.
".....!"
She startled immediately.
Unlike its fluffy appearance, sharp straws poked through the gaps in her clothes, jabbing her buttocks.
While she drifted off on a soft bed, he'd tossed and turned in a place like this.
Lying fully atop the straw now, Amelia gazed at the ceiling.
It was patchy and broken in places, covered in sloppy nail marks.
The hard wooden box pressing into her back from below.
The hay that prickled her entire body the moment she lay down—even worse than when sitting.
Amelia was speechless.
Utterly so.
The bedding was beyond uncomfortable—unimaginably so.
"........."
She should apologize.
Tell him everything and say she was sorry, honestly.
A witch like Amelia apologizing to a slave like Siwoo might seem laughable.
That was why she'd kept her mouth shut until now.
Because that's how she'd been taught.
Because that's what she knew.
She hadn't expected it to come to this.
She didn't want to admit it. Didn't want to be honest.
She'd thought staying silent or covering it up some other way would resolve it.
Just like when she'd barely buried her longing for her master.
But not anymore.
Her conscience had overwhelmed even the vain sense of authority she'd clung to so stubbornly.
If something was wrong, she'd correct it—and prepare the compensation he deserved.
With a heavy heart, Amelia rolled over.
Then.
-Thud!
"Eut...!"
As she twisted to get up, a hard, sharp sensation jabbed her tailbone, making her flinch.
There must have been a box misplaced beneath the straw.
Feeling the stinging ache in her tailbone, Amelia rummaged through the pile to find the culprit.
"This is..."
What emerged was a neatly designed wooden box.
It didn't look particularly expensive.
Still, it was luxurious enough for a mere slave to possess.
And quite heavy—something substantial inside.
She knew it was impolite to peek into someone else's belongings.
But curiosity burned about what he kept so preciously.
Maybe something he'd absentmindedly left behind.
What could it be?
She gave it a light shake, and coins jingled inside.
The clink of bottles bumping, the rustle of paper too.
She should just return it.
Tucking the box under her arm, Amelia stepped out of the stable.
Then a sudden thought struck her.
"I need to give him a gift of atonement... but what should it be? I'm stumped."
Muttering to herself despite being alone, she glanced around awkwardly.
"This is just research for a gift he'd actually like."
After a quick rationalization, Amelia slyly opened the wooden box.
And froze solid.
A leather pouch brimming with gold coins.
A thick stack of mana paper.
A bottle of top-grade mana essence, sealed with Emerald Tablet authentication wax.
And hundreds of pages of Siwoo's magic circle blueprints.
2.
Amelia set the items down.
Her mind felt utterly blank.
Such confusion hadn't struck in ages.
To describe its intensity, perhaps like the first time she learned how sex between man and woman worked?
The gold coins made sense.
If he'd diligently saved his salary all this time, he could have amassed that much.
Besides, a hardworking man like Siwoo surely hadn't stolen it.
The mana essence and mana paper made sense too.
The circumstances were mysterious, but he'd been spending time close to the twins lately.
An apprentice witch from the renowned Gemernai family handing out such items as tokens of favor wouldn't be strange at all.
But what threw Amelia into turmoil was the magic formula blueprints.
Not some decorative daily magic, but blueprints for large-scale arrays.
Recently, she'd tasked him with ghostwriting work documents or creating indexes, so she knew his handwriting intimately.
A bold, vigorous scrawl—manly and unrestrained.
That handwriting densely filled over two hundred pages.
"How...?"
After skimming through them and staring for a long while, those were her first words.
Magic formulas were an intensely complex, high-level interdisciplinary field.
You couldn't excel with mastery of just one area.
Talent across diverse domains was essential.
Linguistic intuition for the grammar of 128 runes.
Mathematical prowess for the equations governing mana flow in circuits.
Even artistic flair for rendering intended imagery in mental geometry.
And finally, the instinctive genius to harmonize it all, adapt it, and spark unprecedented inspiration.
This was the foundation of all magic.
Typically, apprentice witches born with the 'witch's bloodline'—natural prodigies—needed at least ten years to master it all.
"What on earth..."
And Siwoo had been captured and brought to Gehenna five years ago.
If he'd merely demonstrated proficient control of the basics, Amelia might have accepted it.
He'd been called a mathematician in the outside world; had he stayed, he'd have become the greatest...
But what filled the pages wasn't mere basics.
Even to Amelia, it was arranged in a bizarre, novel fashion—forming its own rules, its own consistent grammar.
A completely original method and calculus she'd never encountered.
Like an English speaker trying to read a Latin poem?
She could parse some calculations here and there, but the overall meaning, the nuance, the purpose—it eluded her.
Had Siwoo been there to explain, it would have been different.
But for Amelia, at the 22nd rank, to fail to grasp it at a glance...
It meant this was Self-Generating Magic.
The realm of mastering all fundamentals and pioneering one's own 'Ain'.
Who would believe a mere slave—without even a 1st-rank stigma—had achieved this?
The world reveals itself only as much as one comprehends.
What Siwoo had accomplished far surpassed anything the apprentice witch twins could perceive.
Amelia extended her telekinesis.
From page 1 to the still-unfinished page 228.
Linking them like puzzle pieces, the hazy image of the magic circle coalesced into one.
Now she could faintly guess his intent.
Like viewing a picture from afar—dim, but clearer than before.
"Absorbing external mana and self-activating it, controlling load variables, and this..."
A gate.
An attempt to directly interfere with dimensions and open a gate was visible.
Siwoo's Self-Generating Magic was a 'dimensional magic formation'—something no one had dared attempt since Duke Kether created it.
Amelia pinpointed his desire.
He wanted to leave Gehenna.
-Shhh!
The spread pages gathered back into order, forming a neat stack.
Amelia slid it back into the box.
Her head spun.
Dizziness hit.
Not from fatigue.
"Trying to... escape?"
It might be the reasonable response.
Slaves dragged to Gehenna without knowing why—yearning for freedom wasn't odd.
If he made it back to the present world...
Amelia shook her head.
She couldn't cite a rational reason, couldn't understand why this emotion surged, but suddenly she felt afraid.
She had to see him.
Mana swirled at her feet.
Her body bounced like a ball, hurtling across the academy.