In the second bedroom of the lord’s castle, where the fire in the fireplace burned brightly.

After tightly drawing the curtains, Bale spoke anxiously:

“What does magic exhaustion even mean? How dangerous is it?”

Lucarion, who had been examining Tie, lifted his head.

Having returned to the form of a boy, he looked at them with a heavy, deepened crimson gaze.

“I don’t really know how it works for humans.”

“Kkyu.......”

Pupu immediately pressed his forehead to Astie’s cheek, wiping away tears.

Lucarion sighed.

“Any magic is activated through magical power. When it is depleted, the caster enters a state of thirst.”

Basto stepped closer to the bed.

“That much I know. But this has never happened before.”

Tie had cast colossal spells countless times.

Yet never had it been this hard on her.

“......Actually, the manifestation of the dead requires an enormous amount of magic.”

Lucarion muttered.

He glanced at the others.

“Do you remember the ghosts Astie summoned in Pearlcity?”

Raul and Enzo nodded.

How could they forget.

The ghost ship cutting through the stormy sea.

And the dense ring of blue souls surrounding it.

“The ship, the ghosts, and today’s skeletons — all of that was the result of Tie using remnants of something and restoring only a ‘part.’”

“A part?”

“Yes. Take the principle of summoning skeletons, for example.”

Basto frowned.

He remembered how Tie sometimes talked about her bony friends.

“......Right. She said you can only summon them near a grave.”

“That’s the only way. It’s magic that is possible only when there is a material remnant — bones or a body.”

“I see.......”

“It was the same with the ship in Pearlcity. She summoned a vessel resting in the abyss and temporarily controlled it. The ghosts are essentially similar.”

“Similar?”

Lucarion pointed toward the window between the curtains.

“Ghosts are everywhere. We simply cannot see them.”

Bale swallowed.

“The problem is that they have no consciousness. They do not remember who they were or what they did in life.”

“So...... they are souls wandering without knowing who they are?”

“Exactly. Tie simply pours magic into them and gains temporary control. She literally creates subordinates that can be commanded for a while.”

Raul and Enzo exchanged glances.

Lucarion spoke as though it were nothing.

But there was only one mage capable of communicating with the dead and granting them magic.

And that mage was Tie.

Lucarion continued:

“But connecting the world of the living and the underworld is something entirely different.”

“.......”

“That is no longer adding magic to remnants. It is something the caster must accomplish entirely on their own, from beginning to end.”

The manifestation of a soul.

An almost impossible attempt — to recreate the deceased completely as they were in life.

And Tie had not merely manifested the dead before the living.

She had allowed them to speak.

“She restored memory, emotions, personality, even physical features. Naturally, her body could not withstand it.”

“B-but in Pearlcity, wasn’t there something similar?”

Basto spoke in confusion.

“In Pearlcity, Kal Worben saw my late wife. And it seemed like he spoke with her. I did not see her, of course.......”

“That was not a manifestation. That was resentment.”

“What?”

“What your wife showed Kal Worben was not Tie’s will. [N O V E L I G H T] Eve did that herself.”

Basto lost his voice.

Lucarion sighed.

“And at that time, Kal Worben was near death. The connection between body and soul had almost severed. That is why he saw her so clearly.”

Memories flashed before Basto’s eyes.

Towering waves.

The rocking Des Hound ship.

Kal Worben trembling among the ghosts.

“So that’s how it was.......”

Basto sank heavily into a chair.

Silence filled the room.

“It’s my fault, damn it.”

Bale muttered.

He was staring at his knees.

His bandaged hand rested there, and in his palm he clutched a silver necklace.

“There was another way. I just couldn’t stand listening to that bastard Reginald’s rambling.......”

Basto watched him silently.

He did not feel like blaming Bale now.

But it was strange — why the one who usually did not care about anything had snapped this time.

“......I worked in a mine. As a child.”

Bale said quietly.

He gripped the necklace so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“I was sold at two years old. To human traffickers.”

He let out a faint laugh.

“And the words that bastard Reginald was spewing...... the manager at my first mine used to say the exact same things, damn it.”

“Kids like your little brother should crawl into passages that narrow.”

“The tighter and lower the shaft, the easier it is for children to work.”

In that moment, Bale felt his blood run cold.

He remembered working until he coughed up blood, just so his younger brothers would not be sent into the mine.

Or remembered how he had ended up staining his hands anyway when he left the mines.

When he came to his senses—

Reginald had been lying unconscious beneath him.

Bale lifted a guilt-filled gaze toward Tie.

“......I should have endured.”

When the soldiers dragged him away, that was all he could think.

He should have waited. Slipped into the castle at night.

Then he would have killed him quietly, without witnesses.

Like the day he strangled the mine manager before leaving his homeland.

“Because of me, the brat.......”

His gaze darkened further.

“U-um.......”

A faint groan came from the bed.

Bale jerked his head up.

Tie’s eyes fluttered open.

“Brat?”

“......Tie!”

Everyone jumped to their feet.

But the first person Tie looked at was Bale.

“......Oppa.”

Bale froze, then answered in a trembling voice:

“Y-yeah... brat. You... are you alright?”

Instead of replying, she studied him carefully.

And her gaze settled on his bandaged hand.

“Oppa’s hand... is it all right?”

Bale’s eyes reddened instantly.

Tie reached out worriedly and firmly clasped his hand.

“Sorry... Tie is the leader, but oppa came late to save me.......”

Bale inhaled sharply.

“Oppa, did it hurt a lot?”

“Sorry for making you risk your life every day, hyung.”

Astie’s face overlapped with the faces of the younger brothers he had left behind in his homeland.

Something dripped onto his knees.

“O-oppa. Are you crying?”

Tie struggled to sit up.

But Bale roughly wiped his eyes and suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace.

“Idiot! Even so, why push yourself this far?!”

His voice was sharp, yet hot tears kept running down his cheeks.

“You haven’t even fully recovered from your cold! And you’re trying to manifest a spirit now?!”

Tie immediately puffed out her cheeks.

Sniffling, she answered:

“U-uee... Tie just wanted Adeline onni to meet her mother.......”