Chapter 12

Aethlyn came back to her senses, looked away, and cleared her throat.

“I’m fine.”

“You may be fine now, but who knows how you’ll be in a few hours? Don’t end up dozing off while giving orders… You should get some sleep.”

The man slipped between rudeness and kindness with startling ease.

Aethlyn had never met anyone like him before.

Well, there was Federin.

But unlike Federin, who always teased people while carefully staying within the proper boundaries, Gennadi acted as though no such boundaries existed in the first place.

Aethlyn gave an involuntary shiver.

She felt strangely uncomfortable with herself for comparing Federin and Gennadi.

‘I really must not be in my right mind.’

Just as Sergeant Vilev had said, she probably needed at least an hour or two of sleep.

“…You’re right.”

“I’ll go get some rest.”

“Good.”

“But shouldn’t you get some sleep too? You’ve been awake this whole time with me.”

Gennadi blinked a couple of times.

It was the sort of reaction someone gave when they had never been asked such a question before.

“Oh… I’ll be fine.”

“Didn’t you just say that you never know how someone will be a few hours from now?”

“I’m a werewolf.”

“I can stay awake for about three days without any trouble.”

“…Right.”

Of course.

He wasn’t human.

Sure enough, Sergeant Vilev didn’t seem tired in the slightest.

If anything, he somehow looked even more refreshed than when she’d first met him.

Aethlyn said,

“Wake me in two hours. You know where my quarters are, right?”

“…Yes.”

Aethlyn’s quarters were a tiny room carved into the inside of the trench.

It was cramped and shabby, but compared to the soldiers’ barracks crawling with rats and fleas, it was practically paradise.

In fact, it was so clean and orderly that it was hard to believe it was part of a trench at all.

“[Orlorot.]”

The moment she stepped inside, Aethlyn removed the glove from her left hand, traced a circle with her index finger, and recited the spell.

A translucent barrier briefly shimmered over the back of her left hand, and the clean scent of Japanese cypress filled the room.

The truth was…

Aethlyn had been using magic to keep the trench sanitary.

Any guilt she might have felt about using sacred magic for nothing more than cleaning disappeared the moment she thought about the rats, fleas, and filthy water.

Instead, she chose to think of it this way.

‘*On the battlefield, the most important thing isn’t courage or strategy—it’s sanitation.*’

In reality, countless soldiers had collapsed from disease in the trenches.

Typhoid.

Cholera.

Most infections spread through contaminated surroundings.

After realizing just how serious the problem was, Aethlyn had secretly spent the past several weeks purifying the soldiers’ drinking and bathing water while exterminating the plague rats that carried disease.

“Don’t you think there’ve been a lot fewer plague rats and rot bugs lately?”

“Maybe it’s because the werewolves are here?”

“No. They’d already started disappearing before that.”

No one realized that it was Aethlyn’s doing.

But she didn’t mind.

She had never started doing it for recognition.

A true mage should quietly devote themselves to helping others where no one could see.

After entering her freshly cleaned room, Aethlyn pressed a handkerchief against her dry eyelids.

The drowsiness she had been holding back rushed over her like a tidal wave.

This time…

…she didn’t fight it.

She simply let herself sink into sleep.

Twelve years earlier.

It was the anniversary of the former Duchess of Wintercrown’s death.

Thalia Wintercrown.

Aethlyn’s late birth mother.

She had been born into House Anfante, renowned for its fire magic, and had unexpectedly passed away from illness nine years earlier.

At the time, her death had sent shockwaves through Estaria’s magical community.

Naturally so.

Thalia had symbolized the union between House Wintercrown, famed for abstract magic, and House Anfante, the foremost family of fire magic.

In truth, the two houses had never gotten along.

Their feud stretched back centuries.

Mages who practiced abstract magic looked down on elemental mages as “shallow.”

Elemental mages, in turn, dismissed abstract mages as “fools who did nothing but wave rulers around and chase intangible theories.”

House Wintercrown stood at the pinnacle of abstract magic.

House Anfante represented elemental magic.

As such, the marriage between Thalia Anfante and Henry Wintercrown had symbolized reconciliation between the two schools.

Naturally, it had been an arranged marriage.

A picture-perfect political marriage.

A contract forged solely for the interests of their families, with not a trace of affection involved.

To summarize this rather tedious story…

Thalia Wintercrown had been a symbol.

A mascot representing the alliance between two great houses.

So when she died, people weren’t truly saddened by the loss of a person.

Instead, they worried about things like…

“What’s the proper way to offer condolences?”

“What should I wear to the funeral?”

Little more than shallow social concerns.

And, as was often the case with such symbols…

People forgot Thalia surprisingly quickly.

The previous Duke of Wintercrown passed away.

Henry inherited the title.

Then he married his own relative, Janet.

Nine years after Thalia’s death…

…it seemed there was no one left who still thought of her.

Not even House Anfante, where she had been born.

Not even her own daughter…

Aethlyn.

“I really can’t remember anything anymore.”

Aethlyn murmured to herself.

Staring blankly at the ripples spreading across the lake, she whispered again,

“I can’t remember Mother’s face.”

It wasn’t all that surprising.

Remembering the distant past took conscious effort.

Aethlyn had never made that effort.

Even now, at fourteen years old, she had never deliberately looked through photographs of her mother.

She had never lain awake alone imagining her face.

She simply hadn’t had the luxury of indulging in such sentimentality.

She had too many responsibilities to shoulder.

‘Young Duchess Aethlyn.’

That was the nickname people had given her.

Even though she had a younger brother, Arthur, and no heir had yet been officially chosen.

At first, it had simply been a joke.

A playful nickname adults used because the young Aethlyn behaved far more maturely than her age.

But as she grew older…

…it stopped feeling entirely like a joke.

The best proof was how her stepmother, the Duchess of Wintercrown, flew into a rage every time someone called her “Young Duchess Aethlyn.”

In any case…

At the moment, Aethlyn was far removed from all that commotion.

She was fourteen years old.

Escaping her tiresome relatives and her clingy younger brother, she was quietly enjoying the scenery in a place where no one else was around.

Her long, flowing golden hair danced in the gentle breeze.

She blinked beneath equally long lashes as she enjoyed the wind against her face.

Though not flashy, her delicate, elegant features were tinged with melancholy.

‘*This is the last year I’ll be able to see this view.*’

The following year, she was scheduled to enter Estaria Magic Academy.

She still had one final entrance examination to pass.

But with her current abilities, it would be laughably easy.

She could probably pass even if she couldn’t use one or two fingers on her left hand.

‘*Once I enter the academy… I won’t be able to see this place for quite some time.*’

She looked forward to leaving behind her unbearable stepmother and the younger brother who followed her everywhere.

But she would miss this lake.

Not because of its beauty.

Because it was the only place that still held memories of her mother.

Ah.

There was one other thing her mother had left her.

That was…

“[Aturaura.]”

Aethlyn raised the index finger of her left hand and spoke the incantation.

The magic circuit briefly glowed.

A tiny flame flickered into existence before vanishing.

A gentle smile spread across Aethlyn’s face.

Fire magic.

It was the only spell her mother had ever taught her.

As she taught it to the young Aethlyn, she had said—

“As much as you’re a Wintercrown, you’re also an Anfante. An Anfante who can’t wield fire simply shouldn’t exist.”

Aethlyn couldn’t clearly remember her mother’s face anymore.

But she remembered her voice from that day.

A soft, fragile voice that trembled ever so slightly.

A faint smile shimmering beyond the flickering flames.

And then—

Grrrr…

‘Grrr?’

Startled by the unfamiliar sound, Aethlyn turned around.

She froze where she stood.

A strange dog she’d never seen before was standing there.

It was enormous, with jet-black fur unlike any dog she had ever encountered.

…No.

Was it even a dog?

It looked more like a monster.

A Cerberus, perhaps.

Or a Lycos.

Aethlyn’s thoughts tangled together.

She instinctively raised her left hand into a defensive stance.

“Ahhh!”

Aethlyn jolted awake with a scream.

Her left hand hurt as though it were engulfed in flames.

Cold sweat drenched her entire body.

Before she had fully regained her senses, someone outside began pounding violently on the wooden door.

“Are you all right?”

It was Sergeant Gennadi Vilev.

He called out to her with such urgency that it sounded as though he was about to break the door down.

Caught completely off guard, Aethlyn hurriedly shouted back,

“I’m fine! I’m fine, so stop pounding on the door!”

As she hastily wiped herself down with a dry towel and hurried back into her uniform, her hands continued trembling uncontrollably.

Fortunately, the pain in her left hand had subsided considerably.

Even so…

The shock of that pain still lingered deep within her mind.