Chapter 15
“Umm…?”
As soon as Celine opened her eyes, she was met with a light so bright it made her squint. The blurry scenery pressing against her eyelids gradually sharpened into focus over time.
‘Room? Lamp? White wallpaper? Bed? …Chimera!!’
Stunned as she processed the scene before her, Celine suddenly recalled the chimera she hadn’t managed to defeat, and without thinking, she bolted upright.
“Chimera! The chimera—”
“Er…?”
But as if the whole ordeal had been a dream, the place she found herself in felt strangely familiar.
“My room?”
Realizing it was her own room at the academy—one she’d visited dozens of times while attending—Celine pinched her cheek, worried it might all be a hallucination.
“Ow! …If it hurts, then it must be real?”
As she came to grips with the stinging pain on her cheek confirming reality, a maid came into the room to check on Celine’s condition.
“Oh my, miss! You’re awake!”
“Betty! Why am I here? What about that monster? Oh, and that guy!?”
“Lie back down first. You only just woke up after passing out—you’ll collapse again if you go walking around like this.”
The maid named Betty calmed Celine’s barrage of questions and gently guided her back to bed. Though she had a million things she wanted to ask, Celine yielded to the hands of the servant who’d cared for her for so long and obediently lay down.
“Betty. First off, why am I here? What happened with the practical?”
“You must have a lot of questions… The practical was halted immediately. You were the last in line, but things got weird, so they stopped the other students’ observations and rushed in to rescue you.”
According to Betty, the observation device had glitched the moment Celine entered the illusion space. Investigation revealed it hadn’t been an illusion entry but a spatial transfer instead, sending her to an unmonitored location. The academy, realizing the gravity of the situation, had dispatched professors right away. By the time they arrived, they found Celine passed out after supposedly defeating the chimera with everything she had.
“Wait, wait!”
“Yes? What is it?”
“No, what are you talking about? Me, defeating that chimera?”
Celine was dumbfounded. The monster had taken her attacks without a scratch—how could the story be that she had beaten it?
“Pardon? But you were the only one there who could’ve done it, miss. There was even testimony from that commoner who was with you.”
“Commoner? You don’t mean…?”
Mars Noctus. The arrogant bastard who’d knocked her out. The idea that he had testified she’d defeated the chimera left Celine visibly flustered.
‘Testified that I beat the chimera? What the hell?!’
She knew better than anyone. Even at full strength, she couldn’t beat that thing now. If someone else had taken it down in her place, it had to be that guy…
But the hypothesis that he’d beaten a monster that shrugged off two of her full-power spells only deepened her curiosity. Mars’s strength, as far as she knew, was utterly unremarkable. It made no sense that someone like him could’ve done it.
“That guy… Mars. Was he badly hurt? Like, hovering between life and death or something?”
“No, he was fine. Word is he stayed by your side without a scratch while you were out. He’s hospitalized just in case, but he’ll probably be discharged soon.”
“……Impossible.”
Even if he’d stepped in and won the fight for her, that left some room for possibility. But unscathed? It defied her common sense. He should’ve at least had broken bones or been on life support as a vegetable—yet he was perfectly fine? Her head spun.
“The academy’s planning to apologize to you for the chimera incident and present you with a plaque of gratitude! As expected of our miss!”
“No, I didn’t…”
“Oh, and the duke stayed up all night waiting. He just went to catch some shut-eye, but I’ll go tell him you’re awake~”
“B-Betty? Wait—!”
Before she could stop her, Betty darted out of the room.
“Haa… What a mess. There’s no way I beat that chimera. I saw with my own eyes it didn’t die. So the conclusion is obvious…”
Her conclusion: Mars had defeated it and pinned the credit on her. But for that to hold, he’d need to be at least late-stage Aura Expert, bordering on Aura Master.
‘That means he’s deliberately hiding that kind of power… But why?’
Even Aura Expert level would have great nobles scrambling to scout him. At his age? Reaching Master wouldn’t be a pipe dream—the imperial family would grant him a title or boost his house’s rank by two or three grades with lavish treatment. Popularity and women throwing themselves at him would follow.
‘Unless he has no choice but to hide it?’
As Celine’s suspicions snowballed…
“Celine!!!”
“D-Dad?!”
A brown-haired man identical to Celine burst in, sobbing uncontrollably.
“My girl! When I heard you nearly died, my heart dropped—literally stopped for three seconds! No joke!”
“You’re embarrassing me, so cut the dramatics! And it’s hot—get off!”
Celine recoiled in horror at the sight of a grown man bawling and clinging to his daughter, but the duke’s tenacity proved surprisingly strong as she tried to pry him off.
“If you don’t let go, I won’t talk to you anymore, Dad!”
“At least you woke up early. That’s a relief.”
No sooner had he spoken than the duke sat ramrod straight in the bedside chair. To this severe daughter-con, the threat of his girl going no-contact was more terrifying than any other.
Having lost his frail wife young, he’d raised his two daughters like treasures—any rift with them was his greatest fear.
“What about Sis?”
“Your sister’s handling things in my stead. Can’t have both the family head and heir absent, so I came to check on you. She wanted to come, but judged it proper for me to handle family matters.”
“Always such a fuss… It was just mana exhaustion anyway. No need to worry that much. More importantly, what about that monster and the arena? Any investigation results?”
Flustered by her dad and sister’s concern, Celine awkwardly changed the subject.
“Ah, that? As the victim, you deserve to know. The imperial family threw full support into the investigation given the severity. They started with whoever set up that magic circle.”
It was too suspicious for a mere accident, so the empire backed the academy fully—especially with a future talent entangled. But despite the odd circumstances, no evidence remained. Everyone involved in the illusion circle had alibis; no single person could’ve crafted such a massive ritual alone anyway, and no one acted suspiciously during creation. The arena breeding the chimera was just an ancient ruin with no records or related personnel inside. The only clue: a pile of not-quite-dried corpses in the large enclosure, suggesting it’d been confined there recently—but nothing more.
“Not sure if it targeted you specifically or you stumbled into a trap, but the culprit clearly harbors ill will toward the academy.”
“I see…”
“We’re leaning toward an outsider, not practical-related, but pinpointing them will be tough.”
With no leads, some suggested covering it as a disguised simple accident over suspecting everyone. Officially: ritual error caused forced transfer to an unknown place, where the duke’s daughter defeated a real monster. Celine understood but couldn’t shake the unease.
“Anyway, I saw the scene. One hell of a strike. Well done! That’s my girl!”
“Dad, about that…”
“Hm?”
“That guy who was with me… did you sense anything from him?”
Duke Euse, a 7th-circle mage. With 10 circles total—10th being divine, 9th the human limit—his prowess was evident. As one of the continent’s top mages, maybe her father had seen through Mars.
Celine asked hopefully about his hidden power.
“Oh, that Mars or whatever? Since he owed his life to you, I checked him out, but he seemed average. Looks, talent, everything. Grateful to you and singing your praises—not a bad guy, but… something happen?”
“N-No, nothing…”
A misread, then. If even her father hadn’t noticed, his talent really was ordinary. But lingering doubts swirled in her mind.
‘No good. Soon as I’m discharged, I’ll track him down and ask. If he’s hiding that much power… he’s worth recruiting to our side!’