The Next Step

—

After speaking, Will sat opposite her chair, his eyelids slightly lowered. He wasn’t even looking at Leah, but rather at the chair legs of the chair she was sitting on. Leah gazed at his somewhat messy head; his brown hair was as fluffy as ever. He looked somewhat… pathetic. Yet, compared to before, he seemed a little more “human.”

Leah hadn’t yet asked him what he had done after faking his death, nor what he had experienced during this time, nor what he had gone through before choosing that death. But, whenever he mentioned the moment from his “death” until now, that terrifying aggressiveness would fade from him.

What she never expected was… after having an inhibitor implanted and being given “quests” by Will, in the end… he still handed the solution over to her, as if, years after graduation, he had met his best student again. He was still the same as before, presenting problems without answers, trusting that she could solve them.

“Is it because I agreed to let you implant the insect to make yourself feel more at ease? Will, you don’t seem as terrifying as you did a moment ago.”

“That’s so mean, Teacher Leah. I told you I did this because I love you.”

Leah saw at a glance that he was lying, because when Will spoke the truth, just like when he healed people, there wouldn’t be such obvious traces of performance.

—Since he still believed so much that she, as his teacher, could provide the answer, she definitely wouldn’t disappoint him.

“If you’re willing to give me a little more… a few more rewards… as your teacher, I… I do have a possible solution that my current body can’t achieve…”

“Hmm?”

“This, the Grand Mage Melyn gave to me.”

Leah pulled out the Primordial Text Melyn had given her from her pocket. Yellowed pages, a tattered cover, an illegible title—it looked exactly like the stereotypical “original text.”

“What… is this?”

Even Will was surprised, standing up from his chair. He spoke the truth; the current him indeed knew very little about the “future,” because the original story’s events had largely been experienced. He had also arrived in a timeline where all events were disrupted and didn’t happen as they should.

“Melyn—have you heard of her?”

“The one you mentioned that one time, when you were telling me about ancient magic? I remember she also provided quite a bit of research material for the Primordial Candle magic…”

“You… you actually remember!” Leah was surprised. “Yes. She gave me this Primordial Text too. Although… although it felt more like charity… haha.”

Will ran his hand over the cover. Only then did he realize that the illegible title on the book’s cover wasn’t due to dust, but rather some inherent dust-like ornamentation that obscured the title.

“Actually, this Primordial Text doesn’t exist within the Primordial Candle magic system. The Primordial Candle seems to assume we have the ability to process the raw materials for the wax blocks to allow for assembly. So, it’s normal that I didn’t know about it before, and you hadn’t heard of it. Aunt Melyn… cough cough, Teacher, probably found this ancient magic from another direction after realizing a possible bottleneck later on.”

“I see…” Will propped his chin, lost in thought. “So, what is the name of this book exactly… Hmm… the last two characters in ancient script seem to be Cinder Extinction? What about the first two characters?”

Leah shook her head.

“This book is already a Primordial Text, but it seems from the moment I got it, the first two characters were missing.”

The origins of Primordial Texts of ancient magic were very complex. But most were directly “excavated” from dungeons. Dungeon loot had some unique characteristics, with a relatively low probability of being artificially damaged. One could only assume that the ancient mage who wrote this book never intended anyone to know its name from the very beginning?

“Although Elder Melyn’s translation is very good. But ancient magic relies more on insight. Without knowing its true name, even after reading it completely, I couldn’t understand it, let alone my magic circuits themselves are…”

Leah paused, looking at Will. She had originally hoped Will would give her a little… a little “reward” for this.

But…

“It’s quite late today. I had intended to research it. But perhaps tomorrow would be better.”

“Wh-What…?”

“Rest is a very important part of being a beautiful girl, you know. Teacher Leah, you should head back for now. Shall we meet here tomorrow at eight?”

“Eight o’clock it is… Wait, y-y-y-you… you’re sending me back?”

Leah turned to look at the room, then turned to look at Will. She looked at the room, then at Will again. She repeated this three times. Will still had a “no guests allowed here” expression, arms crossed.

—Huh? Huh?? Huh???
—Even though they were already a single man and woman living together in a cave hut, he was so casually sending her back now?!

“What’s wrong?”

“Aren’t you… aren’t you the kind who’s like, like a ravenous wolf… trapping a poor little witch in a cave, only to cruelly strip her clothes and verbally abuse her…”

Thwack.

Will slapped the book onto her head, not letting her finish her sentence.

“I can see it now, Teacher Leah, you… don’t tell me…” He gave a wicked grin. “You want to ‘serve’ me by offering your body, and in return, get a ‘reward’?”

In truth, Leah was merely guessing at Will’s most perverse intentions, but still… She glanced to the side guiltily, her hand touching the insect on her neck—and the spot Will had rubbed.

“W-Well… th-that… when you… when you just rubbed it there for a moment, I-I did, for a few seconds, have… have that thought…”

“Don’t make me sound like I’m just driven by lust. If I only wanted your body, I would have made my move yesterday.”

Will paused, rubbing his chin, pondering for a moment—

“Hmm… if your magic circuit depression were truly cured, I’m afraid you’d be sleeping with me, not the other way around, wouldn’t you?”

“…Ehehe?”

Leah stuck out her tongue, briefly reverting to her original “Trash Witch” version.

“Th-then, then, then… I’ll be leaving first—you’re not allowed to punish me with sedatives. I’ll be very fast.”

After several instances of Will manipulating her magic circuit perception with a flick of his finger, she now seemed incredibly sensitive to his every “reward” and “punishment.”

“Then listen carefully. You are asking for ‘rewards’ from me—so you have to satisfy me enough to sleep with me.”

Will lightly kicked Leah’s small butt with his foot. He watched her leave with small, quick steps.

“Alright…”

Will sighed, pacing twice around the room. Leah probably thought this cave was a “cozy hut.” She didn’t know that what she saw, which looked like merely a “living room,” was actually the entire place.

“Actually, it’s because there’s no bed here at all… I usually just sleep on the floor…”

“Of course, if Teacher Leah knew that, she’d probably pity me and find an excuse to bring me to the city.”

He scratched his head, then sat back down on the chair.

“But if that happened, I wouldn’t be able to maintain the ‘mystique’ and ‘distance’ in her heart.”

Will slumped back in the chair, looking at the bottle of blood-red liquid, shaking the beaker in his hand. Then… out of utter boredom, he took out his small notebook. On the somewhat damp notebook, he gazed at words that weren’t “quests” but merely resembled a memo.

“Good, the first point is achieved. She’ll obediently come to see me tomorrow too…”

“So…”

“The next step…”

“Is to make her understand what kind of love I want—”

—