The Next Destination
After the battle that day, I was forced into a period of mandatory rest for the time being.
My mana circuits had nearly burned out from overload, and exposure to the Outer God’s divine power—naked and completely unshielded—had ruptured blood vessels all over my body. There was nothing for it but to convalesce.
On the bright side, that also meant no more hellish Spartan drills from red-haired Kyra, and no more rolling through the snowfields for stamina training.
Just eat well, sleep well, and rest inside a warm igloo—heavenly downtime… or so I thought.
“Mmm~ So warm. Oppa’s arms really are the best after all.”
“…….”
The living room of the igloo.
In front of the crackling fireplace, on a plush two-seater sofa.
I sat there reading a magic tome the way I always did.
Or rather, today I was doing a miserable job of concentrating, only pretending to read while cold sweat ran down my back.
Because a tiny living creature had glued herself to my lap—no, to my chest—like a stubborn sticker.
The White Dragon Lord, Serapagnia.
Still in the form of a young girl, she had burrowed straight into my embrace, pulled my clothes over herself like a blanket, and curled up.
Exactly like a squirrel settling in for hibernation.
“Um, Lady Serapagnia? Maybe you could sit a little farther away….”
“No way. It’s cold out there. Oppa’s warmer than the fireplace! And don’t call me Serapagnia—call me Sera!”
She nuzzled her face against my chest and let out a nasal little whine.
“Patients need rest, right? I’m giving you dragon-energy therapy. You’re welcome.”
“The energy’s appreciated, but I can’t really breathe….”
“Tsk! I told you not to use formal speech! Stay still. No moving during therapy.”
She casually steamrolled my protest and wriggled around in my arms until she found an even more comfortable position.
Soft, warm body heat.
A faint milky scent rising from her skin.
Honestly, if you ignored how her appearance might raise a few eyebrows, it wasn’t something a man would hate—except for the stares.
Those stares were killing me.
The ones coming from Kyra, who sat right beside me in a single rocking chair and was only pretending to read.
“Ha… give me a break….”
Kyra flipped a page of her grimoire hard enough to tear it and let out a hollow laugh.
Her hair was currently a complete mess.
Worse than the personality poppin’ dance I’d seen last time.
Over the base silver-gray, jealous and furious red flared up in waves, only for attention-seeking gold to poke through here and there.
At the end, violet and teal mixed in a grotesque swirl before vanishing.
Pure, unfiltered chaos.
Then, once the personalities seemed to settle a little:
“Hey, lizard. Tone it down, will you? Can’t you see Erevan’s ribs are still broken? If he suffocates, you’re taking the blame.”
Kyra, hair now about seventy percent red, snapped at her sharply.
Serapagnia didn’t so much as blink.
“My, how considerate of you. This one has weight-reduction magic on her body—light as a feather. And listening to Oppa’s heartbeat, he sounds perfectly healthy. Thump-thump, going wild.”
Serapagnia lifted her head, looked up at me, and grinned.
A flash of shark-like teeth lent her a strangely charming edge.
“Right, Oppa? Is your heart racing because of me?”
“Ah, n-no, that’s….”
“See? He likes it. Erevan’s honesty is so cute.”
“You… you little fox—!”
Crunch.
The cover of the book in Kyra’s hands crumpled.
At the same time the red in her hair surged until it was easily ninety percent.
“That’s it. Forget education—let’s settle this right here. Come outside.”
“Don’t wanna. It’s cold out.”
“Then we fight inside!”
“No. Oppa would get hurt.”
Serapagnia slipped out of every trap like a seasoned snake.
Driven past the boiling point, Kyra shot to her feet, fuming.
And then:
“Fine. If you won’t move, I’ve got other ways.”
She strode straight toward me and wedged herself into the empty space at my right side.
“Excuse me? Headmaster?!”
“Stay still! I’m cold too, so… hmph!”
Kyra yanked my arm around her waist without asking and flopped her head onto my shoulder.
Dragon on the left, archmage on the right.
The sofa was full.
No—about to burst.
“Move over, you multi-personality psycho witch! It’s cramped!”
Serapagnia snapped and shoved at Kyra.
“You move! Rolling stone trying to kick out the settled one—who put you in charge?”
Kyra shoved back with her shoulder, refusing to yield.
“Erevan is mine! I found him first!”
“Don’t make me laugh! I got a letter too! And I saved him! Ever heard of a life debt?”
“I cooked for him! Food debt is scarier!”
“Urgh…!”
Somehow the two of them ended up fighting a territorial war right across my chest.
My solar plexus had become the battlefield.
Breathing was difficult.
And yet the soft warmth and pleasant scents from both sides, plus the childish bickering over me….
Honestly, it wasn’t all bad.
Ha… so this is the harem I dreamed of.
It was very different from the harems in ordinary novels.
Very different from the one I’d intended, too—but it was still the situation the original protagonist, Leon, had gone through.
From a distance I’d nearly died of envy watching it. Living it myself, I realized it came with its own set of headaches.
Happy headaches, of course.
“All right, all right, both of you calm down… why don’t we just read together?”
I forced an awkward smile and opened the book I was holding.
The two of them snorted “Hmph!” at each other, then burrowed right back into me.
Serapagnia propped her chin on my stomach and looked up at the pages; Kyra rested her head on my shoulder and idly played with my hand.
Outside the igloo a blizzard howled, but inside it was almost uncomfortably warm.
“Erevan, this book is boring. Read me a romance novel.”
“Please, Headmaster… why is your speech starting to sound more and more like Lady Serapagnia’s?”
“Because you keep getting pulled in by that pure-white dragon! I found you and I protected you!”
“I didn’t… haaah, fine.”
In the end I yielded and picked up one of the books from the little side table.
And I prayed.
That the threats of Outer Gods and the truths of the world would stay forgotten a little longer. That this peace would last just a little while more—just a tiny bit longer.
But peace, as always, shattered without warning.
Thok! Thud-thud!
Something suddenly struck the glass outside the window.
“…Huh?”
We all turned at once.
A snow-white owl sat on the windowsill.
Tied to its ankle with golden thread was an elegant letter case.
“Hmm?”
Kyra, the only one who recognized the owl, narrowed her eyes and muttered.
“That’s a messenger from the White Magic Tower?”
Serapagnia sat up and scowled.
“White Magic Tower? Those arrogant humans who made some magic-truth club they don’t even understand? The one called White something-or-other….”
The owl looked at us and tapped the window impatiently.
I opened it and let the bird inside.
Coo!
It hopped familiarly onto Kyra’s lap and stuck out its leg.
Fine parchment bound in golden thread.
The seal bore the Magic Tower’s emblem—a hexagram and staff—clear as day.
“Let’s see….”
Kyra broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Serapagnia and I leaned in, curious.
To the esteemed Archmage Kyra Bell Arenas,
We have learned of the recent tragedy that claimed Argentina, and we extend our deepest condolences. We can scarcely imagine the weight of that loss.
Yet crisis, as they say, is opportunity. For a talent as great as yours to languish buried in the snowfields is a loss to all of humanity.
Therefore, the White Truth Magic Tower wishes to welcome you as an Honorary Grand Elder. We promise the highest treatment, unlimited research funds, and every ancient grimoire you may desire.
We eagerly await your favorable reply.
— Bertolt de Rasid, Tower Lord
“….”
Kyra’s reaction after finishing the letter was ice-cold.
“Ha! Honorary Grand Elder? Not even funny.”
She crumpled the letter and tossed it into the trash.
“You think I was stuck in Argentina for money? It was because of ■■■■.”
“They really are full of themselves.”
Serapagnia yawned, equally unimpressed.
“Humans—play around with a little dirt magic and they get cocky. Daring to summon this one’s partner like that. Maybe I should just stomp them flat.”
The gathering place of the continent’s greatest mages, a society dedicated to the pursuit of truth… and they treated its lord like that.
No matter how high a human flew, to transcendents the Magic Tower was apparently nothing more than a cute little talent show.
Whatever offer they made, these two would only snort at it.
But.
“…….”
I stared hard at the crumpled letter in the trash.
Original-story knowledge flashed through my mind at high speed.
Tower Lord Bertolt….
Late in the original story, when the academy fell into chaos under an Outer God invasion.
The worst villain, who appeared out of nowhere, betrayed humanity, and stabbed everyone in the back.
He claimed to be a guardian of the continent, but in truth he had been in league with an Outer God for a very long time.
The Fragment of the Screaming Star.
One of the five remaining Outer Gods.
In exchange for learning otherworldly magic from that thing, Bertolt had kidnapped countless mages and orphans for human experiments and built a massive altar deep beneath the tower for the Outer God’s descent.
In the original, his betrayal only came out after the fact, and Leon was driven to the brink of death before barely finishing him off with Clea’s help.
But things were different now.
I already knew his true identity.
And right beside me sat the continent’s strongest mage and the Dragon Lord.
Even without knowing how much power they could freely use, Serapagnia had erased—without any restrictions—that being whose epithet, “All-Seeing Eye That Mocks All Creation,” had reeked of full-blown middle-school syndrome and who had been stronger than any Outer God I’d met so far. If she could do that, the lord of a mere Magic Tower was well within her capabilities.
In short, a golden opportunity had rolled right into our laps—pumpkin and vine together.
They had come to us first; now we could walk into their home base and rip the problem out by the roots.
“Headmaster.”
When I called her in a serious voice, Kyra turned.
“What is it? Don’t tell me you want to send me off to that den of old men?”
“Not that… I want to go.”
“…Excuse me?”
Kyra’s and Serapagnia’s eyes went round at the same time.
“Erevan, did you hit your head? Why go looking for trouble?”
“Yeah, Oppa. Places like that stink and they’re boring. Just stay and play with me.”
I shook my head and retrieved the crumpled letter from the trash.
“I’m not going for fun. This is… a hunt.”
“A hunt?”
“Yes. That Tower Lord Bertolt.”
I tapped the name on the letter with my finger.
“That bastard is in league with an Outer God.”
“…What did you say?”
Kyra’s eyes turned razor-sharp in an instant.
Serapagnia dropped the playful act as well; her golden pupils gleamed.
“Is that solid intel? Even for Oppa, falsely accusing people is a no-no~”
“I’ll stake my neck on it. He’s preparing a descent ritual for an Outer God in the tower basement. Leave him alone and before long one of them will materialize, clean and intact, right in the middle of the Rahelon continent.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them and spoke with grim resolve.
“So please, Headmaster—accept their invitation.”
“…….”
“We’ll walk into the tiger’s den on our own two feet… and skin the tiger. The three of us.”
Silence hung for a moment.
Kyra stared at me blankly, then suddenly burst out laughing.
Her hair bloomed into brilliant gold.
“Haha, seriously…. Erevan, you’re impossible.”
She snatched the crumpled letter and incinerated it with a fingertip.
Fwoosh.
“All right. I was getting bored anyway. Let’s go take a field trip to the Magic Tower.”
“Oho, that does sound fun.”
Serapagnia smacked her lips and stood.
“Insects who dare ally with Outer Gods and defile this one’s territory? I’ll crush them underfoot.”
Murderous light blazed in both transcendents’ eyes.
I offered a silent eulogy for Bertolt.
Sorry, Tower Lord. The ones you invited aren’t an Honorary Grand Elder—they’re walking natural disasters.
And so our next destination was decided: the White Truth Magic Tower, said to stand at the absolute peak of continental magic.