One Impossible Thing After Another
There wasn’t a single thing left for me to do.
Since I had received divine power, there was nothing more left to do in the Luterian Church.
After all, Rai had already arranged the entire schedule. He had told Headmistress Celenas exactly that the trial period would end today.
“Uwaaaah—Abigail-nim, don’t leave me~!”
Maji clung desperately to Abigail’s waist like a child who had just lost her favorite toy.
For a young girl like Maji, parting with someone who had become dear was almost unbearable.
The girl buried her face against Abigail’s waist, hugging her so tightly she was practically smothered, as if letting go would mean never seeing her again.
“Just one more day… just one more day, please.”
Abigail’s voice came out muffled. The words were too soft to hear clearly, yet Rai understood them instantly.
He let out a small sigh of exasperation and gently stroked Maji’s head.
“I’ll come back. Since I’m still at the academy, I can visit every single day. I love you, Maji.”
Those words, heavy with affection, lifted Maji’s gaze.
Her expression remained as blunt and plain as ever, but Maji knew exactly how kind and good this woman truly was.
“Really? You’ll really come back? And… I love you too. More than Lutera…”
Maji’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment; she buried her face back into Abigail’s waist again.
When Rai saw that, he slowly turned his head and glared at the man behind him.
This wretched human… how many tricks did he have up his sleeve? Just moments ago he had perfectly imitated Abigail’s voice.
Even Rai himself had shivered at the exact same tone saying he loved Maji. And in the background, Rai had casually grabbed Abigail’s wrist, continuing to stroke the girl’s head.
The priests standing nearby couldn’t believe their eyes. The voice imitation had been so flawless that none of them had noticed Rai was actually the one speaking.
They only saw Abigail’s blunt, motherly teasing and simply assumed the voice was hers.
“What are you looking at? If you made a promise, you’d better keep it.”
Rai replied with a completely natural smile and stepped back.
Abigail, still pinned by Maji, wanted nothing more than to chase after him but could only sigh softly.
“When I come back, I’ll bring the best snacks.”
It was the kindest thing she could possibly say under the circumstances.
—
After leaving the church, Abigail collapsed the moment she stepped into Rai’s garden.
Her chest heaved, her skin glowed with a reddish sheen, and her clothes were disheveled. The sight screamed “extremely lewd,” yet she still shot Rai a glare full of humiliated fury.
“I got divine power, so I’m going to pull out every single new biological data point I can find.”
Of course he only touched her shoulders, but the waves of power that poured from his hands still skimmed across every inch of her body. The inspection was far longer and far more thorough than before. Abigail couldn’t even straighten her clothes.
Lying sprawled across the garden, she ignored the chaos around her and watched as Rai opened the pouch of power fragments he had been collecting all this time.
He wasn’t exactly reading them.
The fragments shimmered with countless colors—violet, crimson, emerald—dancing in geometric patterns, colliding, weaving, forming constellations of light.
While analyzing the impossible beauty, Rai’s expression remained grave.
Abigail, still adjusting her torn clothes, sat up and gave him a long-suffering look.
“You’d have been perfect for that anti-massage technique.”
One touch from him and he could shut down any power at will. If hundreds of knights suddenly started using the same technique, the carnage would be unimaginable.
“It doesn’t work against power resistance. You’d have to crank the output all the way up, but that’s far less efficient than just using regular magic.”
Rai kept his eyes fixed on the light patterns and answered casually.
Abigail had expected another of his usual lame jokes. Instead she stared at his serious face, then shook her head frantically.
Wanting to ignore the strange feeling that had taken hold of her, she asked the question that had been burning in her mind all along.
“Why did you teach me Rushasso?”
The question seemed to catch Rai’s interest. He turned his head and looked at her properly.
Her usual blunt expression was gone. Abigail glared back, daring him to look away.
Rai held her gaze for a moment, then smirked and finally turned back to the light patterns.
“Because you’re the one who’ll use it best.”
“If it’s doping, that muscle-brained idiot Aslan would be the perfect test subject.”
Abigail had expected him to crack a smile at her calling Aslan a muscle-brain. Instead she simply listened to his serious tone.
“If I taught him, he’d probably break something in the middle of the street and then apologize to the neighbors for the mess.”
Only now did the familiar sarcasm return. His expression was still oddly serious, but the old speech pattern made Abigail feel an inexplicable wave of relief—right before she realized something was wrong.
Why do I feel so relieved?
Flustered, she asked cautiously, “So… am I fine then?”
Abigail kept her eyes on the ground, cheeks burning with shame. She didn’t even know why she was asking.
Rai waved his hand through the swirling light patterns, then nodded.
“Yeah, you’re smart. You know when to stop and how much to push. You can judge your own limits.”
The compliment made the corner of Abigail’s mouth twitch upward before she could hide it.
She had bowed her head so no one would see her face, yet deep down she was thrilled.
The first time she had asked Rai for training, he had called her stupid and kicked her out.
Now she had been officially recognized.
Her heart raced with joy, but even as she tried to enjoy the feeling, she felt an odd, internal tug-of-war. Rai continued without noticing.
“And your mental strength is excellent too. Extreme tendencies, sure—but you’re unbreakable. That kind of resilience can’t be trained. It’s a natural talent.”
Abigail, still bowing, trembled violently. Her lips were bitten so hard they almost bled, and her cheeks flushed the same deep red.
Absorbed in the light patterns, Rai didn’t notice anything unusual. He finished his analysis.
He had pulled data from the priests’ bodies, randomly sampled from ordinary citizens, compared Abigail before and after receiving divine power.
Countless pieces of information had been gathered. The dataset was more than sufficient.
Millions of data points glowed brilliantly. Rai followed the flow of information like a conductor, pulling out one strand after another, weaving them together.
He finally set the fragments aside.
Through guesswork, theory, and every bit of knowledge he already possessed, he reached his conclusion.
I can’t get it. Not even close.
Disappointment and the bitter sting of wanting something he could never have twisted into something almost… jealous?
Many mages had felt exactly this way when they saw divine power in action.
Abigail had expected divine power to be like mana—something the world itself supplied. Instead she had been handed a gift from a god.
To receive it, you needed three things:
First, you had to participate in the ritual. It was essentially talking directly to the deity. If you didn’t speak to them, they wouldn’t grant you their power.
Second, the priests who had joined the ritual had to trust you. It was a kind of endorsement. Only someone already recognized and approved by the god could vouch for you.
Abigail had saved Maji right before the ritual.
In truth she had lost control of her temper and nearly killed a man, but Rai had calmly resolved the situation, so the priests believed she had rescued the girl.
That belief had become trust. She had stood beside Rai in the ritual and offered herself as Lutera’s endorsement.
The third requirement was the god’s will. The deity had chosen Abigail personally.
Of course, a goddess would be careful when selecting someone to receive her blessing.
Mages, however, had always assumed the gods would simply do the convenient thing.
If a mage were a god, they would delegate the boring task of checking every single priest and simply study instead.
Abigail’s life had somehow brushed against Lutera’s teachings by pure chance. Lutera had liked her. A long string of fortunate coincidences had led to the priests’ trust.
The result was a foul-mouthed, red-haired mage who spoke with her fists rather than words.
Tricking a person was easy. Tricking a god was impossible.
And they had been right there, watching every step.
Perhaps Abigail had received divine power because it had been Lutera’s plan from the very beginning.
Her life was exactly the kind of story a bored immortal goddess loved.
Rai shook his head and tucked the power fragments back into his pouch.
He had known the odds were low. He had never thought it was impossible.
But once a god’s will was involved, even the greatest mage could only do so much.
In the end, this is just selfish power.
Thinking like a true mage, Rai shook his head in disappointment.
He had originally wanted divine power to remove the slave contract.
If he could trick a god into giving him divine power, he could tear the contract into pieces and throw them away.
His current life was comfortable enough, but someone who tried to put a leash on his neck was still intolerable.
Joshua’s complaints about Headmistress Celenas’s behavior had only made things worse.
The training sessions everyone could watch, the way she flaunted his power for everyone to see—well, she wasn’t actually shouting it from the rooftops, but it was the same thing. She was inviting interest.
If he could keep living like this, great. But seeing Joshua or Celenas made it clear that life would never stay that simple.
And the ghosts of the fallen Keilen Kingdom were still out there too.
Rai sighed. How long am I supposed to keep this up before I finally get some peace?
Talking to Lutera—the goddess who gave divine power yet never granted true rest—he scattered the power fragments into the air.
The sparkling shards swirled like a galaxy, wrapping around him for a moment before scattering across the sky.
Rai stared at the glittering constellation with empty eyes. The sight was so beautiful that Abigail simply stared, mesmerized.
As the fragments faded, Rai’s gaze drifted back to her. Their eyes met.
“Y-you’re just throwing them away like that?”
Abigail panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
Rai glanced at the fragments, then smiled.
“It’s rude to take someone else’s private information without permission.”
The casual way he said it was too normal to be believable.
Yet Abigail could only stare at the man smiling in the center of the galaxy.
“Whoa—What the hell did you do this time?”
Aslan’s voice rang out, clueless as ever. Abigail scrambled to her feet.
She tried to explain quickly, but Aslan only saw the glowing fragments and frowned.
“I ran here thinking the academy was on fire, and this is what I find?”
“I was protecting someone’s privacy.”
Aslan tilted his head, completely lost. At that moment Rai looked back at Philia, who was still lingering by the gate.
“Oh, I picked her up on the way. Don’t ask why they were fighting. You two already know she’s in the wrong. Just let it go and get along.”
Ignoring Aslan’s clueless advice, Philia bowed deeply in front of Rai.
“I’m sorry I was late. It… it was because I was startled. I’m sorry.”
Rai had already forgotten the whole thing. Philia, however, still remembered the stomach-crumpling moment she had been sleeping on his knee before he uppercut her. She apologized at once.
Seeing how deeply ashamed she was for wasting time training, Rai finally smiled.
He looked at the students gathered around him.
Aslan’s arrival had hidden Zeroa, who was simply smiling quietly beside him. Abigail’s lip was still slightly swollen and her eyes were sharp, yet she remained perfectly composed. Philia kept bowing and apologizing.
Rai scanned them once, then grinned.
“Where are all of you planning to go during the rest period?”
“I don’t have anywhere special planned.”
“Training.”
“I’m going to focus on training this time too. I won’t be heading home to my family. Sorry for the trouble.”
After everyone finished speaking, Rai nodded.
“Then I’ll give you all special training during the rest period.”
“Why isn’t my opinion counted?”
“You don’t have anywhere to go anyway.”
Aslan nodded obediently and fell silent.
Since he was staying at Rai’s house, he would have to return here anyway.
“Special training… sounds great, but what’s gotten into you? You’ve always hated teaching.”
“It’s just… there’s nothing to do, so I’m feeling a little gloomy.”
“So… you’re giving us a gift of that gloomy feeling?”
Abigail finally realized the hidden meaning and frowned. Rai laughed.
“Yeah. Don’t even think about going anywhere during the rest period. Otherwise you’ll be too busy and won’t have time to do anything else.”
It was a warning straight from hell.