The Shadow in the Second Layer
Nathaniel Heilstone’s life had been a string of flawless successes.
At ten, he instinctively cast healing magic, instinctively aware of his innate talent for divine arts.
The following year, at eleven, he entered the academy and registered as an official explorer in just four years.
At twenty, he earned a promotion after playing a major role in curing an unknown plague of dark magic that had ravaged the third floor of the Abyss.
At thirty-five, he now stood as one of the pillars of the Serapeion School, having participated in the recent expedition to the sixth floor.
It was the kind of path that looked almost too perfect on paper.
Yet even he had his worries.
The biggest one sat right beside him.
‘Damn. What could have happened while I was away…’
The incident had occurred while Nathaniel was off on the expedition to the sixth floor.
It had been something completely unexpected, because his disciple was normally quiet and reserved.
It had been his fault for leaving, and the boy had slipped into the training center in secret to take the explorer license just to surprise him.
A training-center raid by the Deep Cultists.
That event had completely shattered the boy.
The kid everyone loved, the one who laughed easily and created a warm, comforting atmosphere even though his skills were nothing special.
Now the smile was gone.
The once-welcoming warmth had turned cold and fragile.
After that day, the boy stopped interacting with others.
He hadn’t cut off the old friendships, in fact they seemed even more carefully tended.
But any kind of closeness was deliberately refused.
Instead, the boy threw himself into training with a desperation that bordered on madness.
Previously, only when he was told to would he stop playing with his classmates and focus.
Now, without anyone pushing him, he pushed himself until he almost collapsed, then cast healing magic on himself and trained nonstop.
The body could be healed by magic, but the mind was a different matter.
That was the real danger, self-harm territory.
Nathaniel had come to believe it was his responsibility.
If he had just thought a little longer, he might have stopped it.
He had seen how well the boy met his own expectations, how he always performed beyond the average genius.
He had assumed the same would hold this time.
He sighed, barely making a sound so as not to disturb his disciple, trying to ease the frustration in his chest.
‘If only I could have received the Mirror of the Mind as well…’
One of the divine-arts branches, healing-type magic.
It was meant to heal wounds not on the body but in the heart.
A kind of hypnotic state that let the conscious mind wander, forcing confrontation with trauma and building tolerance to it.
The user could not cast it on themselves, so the caster had to witness the target’s trauma.
The boy refused even to show it to the master who had raised him.
That was why he had chosen to borrow the power of a special place in the third floor, and even that had produced no real results.
‘Whatever happened… it would be nice if he would just talk openly.’
The boy was not hiding everything.
But when it came to the important core, he either evaded with vague words or simply refused to answer when pressed.
The real problem was that it was not just one person.
Nathaniel understood.
Trauma was not something easily spoken of.
The Duke’s family certainly would not tell an outsider, even one who happened to be a mentor, about what had happened to their young lady.
Perhaps the entire Deep Cultist group had been silenced by the academy.
Still, the frustration would not go away.
‘Come on. Look at it positively. He is still alive, after everything. That is a blessing.’
The boy had survived the death of more than half the other novices.
He claimed the healing magic had saved his life, yet he had failed to rescue his comrades.
The image of the first friend he had ever met dying right in front of him had probably shaken the young boy’s entire worldview.
“You worked hard. The first floor is no problem, right? Take your time from here on out.”
“Yes, Master.”
“How is your body? If it’s hurting, you can rest here for a bit.”
The First Post was the resting facility just before the gate between the first and second floors.
It was expensive, but for Nathaniel, a top explorer, it was nothing.
He could even get free lodging in exchange for healing the ill, thanks to his status as a divine caster.
“No, I’m fine. I want to get back and learn more.”
“…Alright. As you wish.”
It would have been enough for him to grow up healthy.
But when Nathaniel had been gone for several months, the boy had grown up far too fast.
‘Maybe I should have leaned on him a little more.’
Nathaniel entered the town of the First Post, still wondering whether time would heal it.
“…Huh?”
The boy’s voice had changed to something higher, the tone of someone who had just spotted something.
Nathaniel turned his gaze to where the boy was looking and saw it.
‘What… is that?’
He had never seen anything like it.
In the Abyss, which held infinite mysteries no one had ever witnessed, a presence of overwhelming power that had descended all the way to the sixth floor now stood before him, breathing and alive.
It was not his true self, so Nathaniel had not immediately realized it was a contracted entity.
The sheer presence.
The moment he sensed it, Nathaniel’s breath caught in his throat.
If it had been the real body and not a contract… even if it had been a mere vessel… Nathaniel’s heart would have nearly stopped.
His instinct as a divine caster, which had once been a gift from a hidden god, now sent him an extreme warning unlike any he had ever felt.
Far beyond the titles of divine caster or explorer, he instinctively recognized it as something alien in this world itself.
This being was something that should never have existed in the first place.
It was different from every demonologist he had ever encountered.
Nathaniel had partnered with demonologists a time or two when necessary, and he knew the difference.
This one was not like the ordinary ones he knew.
Frozen in his tracks, the image of his disciple’s retreating back was burned into his mind.
“Wait…!”
Without thinking, Nathaniel moved.
His body, heavy with the responsibility of being a master, reached for the boy.
But the boy was already out of reach.
He had to stop it.
His disciple still could not handle that power.
Even after growing explosively since leaving the training center, he was still in a realm far too distant.
For now, he would intervene himself.
‘Wait…’
Nathaniel blinked.
The boy was smiling.
Even when talking to him, the boy rarely laughed, yet now he did.
‘Who…?’
Nathaniel took a step back.
It might be best to watch for a little while longer.
He still did not know exactly what the boy was, but there was no need to reject him outright.
The human connections Nathaniel did not fully understand were only the classmates from the training center.
That meant the boy was one of them too, which meant the Duke family already knew of his existence.
‘What kind of monster are they trying to hide in the Duke family? What were they thinking…?’
“Roman!”
The moment my name was called, I instinctively turned my head to find the one who had shouted it.
The distance was short.
It was a boy running straight toward me.
Warm golden hair, soft features.
A late-teens face that, when it smiled, made the entire surrounding atmosphere feel cozy, like the warmth of a golden retriever.
Philon Grivas.
A member of the Serapeion School who, though not listed among the six great academies, was still a major talent.
And my classmate, Number 6.
That was who the boy was.
“Philon?”
“Long time no see! Ray and Leaf are here too. Of course the three of us are always together.”
It was like a complete set.
We really had stuck together through everything.
Ray had always shut down the jealousy of the other classmates with her bluntness.
And Leaf had quietly backed her up with a few words here and there, like a powerful anti-inflow suppressor.
“But you’ve already made it to the second floor?”
No matter how I looked at him, he was heading back the way we came, so I asked.
Philon shook his head.
“No. I just passed through the second floor and went to the third.”
“The third floor? Novices aren’t allowed there.”
“If you have an escort, it’s fine. And um…”
Philon glanced around, then said softly.
“Going to the wrong floor is pretty common, as long as you don’t get caught.”
That was exactly the kind of thing that spread quietly among everyone.
It was not even the gate; there were shortcuts to the next floor that the training center even taught you about.
“Where did the escort go?”
“Over there, behind us.”
The direction Philon pointed, a man with brown messy hair and a thick beard stood waiting.
When our eyes met, the man walked over.
“Hello. I am Nathaniel Heilstone, Philon’s master.”
Nathaniel extended a hand.
I took it and answered.
“Roman Sun. Philon and I are classmates from the training center. These two are also classmates and teammates of mine, Ray and Leaf.”
“Leaf Yusglimt.”
“Ray.”
While Leaf bowed politely, Ray just gave her name in a casual tone.
Nathaniel greeted them again.
“You’re going to the second floor?”
“Yes.”
Even as a novice, as long as there were more than one of us, we could go to the second floor.
If it had not been possible, Philon would have had to take the shortcut he had mentioned.
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed as he checked for an escort.
“A team of three novices?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm… I won’t stop you, but if you go to the second floor, try to stick to the main route. The conditions on the lower floors have been rough lately. Monsters are appearing far more than usual.”
It was excellent advice from a seasoned senior explorer, but Nathaniel immediately retracted it.
“I suppose it’s not really necessary advice.”
Yes, well… probably not.
We were a team of novices.
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