The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 594: 99%

The platform was quiet except for the sound of stone settling and the distant echo of wind moving through the ravine below. Noel stood at the center of the carved circle, Revenant Fang still drawn, the blade catching the last light of the afternoon as it filtered between the peaks. Around him, the remains of the last creature lay scattered across the rock in heavy, unmoving pieces.

Noir settled beside him slowly, her breathing steadier now than it had been an hour ago. The fight had pushed her. Both of them. The creature had been faster than expected, its body adapted to the altitude and the unstable mana currents in ways that made conventional spellwork unreliable. Noel had spent more energy than he intended, adjusting mid-combat, abandoning two approaches entirely before finding the one that worked.

He wiped the blade clean against the stone and slid it back into its sheath.

"Status." 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

The translucent window appeared without ceremony.

[Current Core Progress: 99.00% — Mana Core: Archmage]

He looked at the number for a long moment without moving. One percent. A single step separating where he was from something none of them fully understood. Noctis had never described what Mana Core felt like from the inside. Elarin had reached it and lost himself entirely. Noel had read that detail more times than he cared to admit, turning it over like a stone with something unpleasant underneath.

He dismissed the window.

’We’re close,’ Noir said quietly from beside him, her eyes still scanning the far ridgeline out of habit.

"Yes," Noel replied.

’How do you feel?’

He considered the question honestly. His mana reserves were lower than he preferred, the sustained combat having carved into them more than a single fight should have. His body felt the altitude the way it always did up here, a faint pressure behind the eyes, a sharpness to every breath. But beneath all of that, something else sat quietly. Not excitement. Not fear.

Something closer to patience.

"I could force it today," he said. There were enough creatures in these mountains. The right sequence of encounters, the right level of opposition, and the last percentage would close. He knew the math. He had been calculating it for weeks.

Noir looked up at him.

He exhaled slowly and turned toward the edge of the platform, eyes tracing the endless ridgelines disappearing into the distance.

"But there’s no reason to rush it."

Noir’s tail moved once in quiet agreement. The mountains offered no opinion either way. They simply waited, indifferent and enormous, the way they always had.

Noel reached into his coat and pulled out a strip of dried ration, eating without particular interest while the last light continued to fade across the peaks.

One percent.

It would come when it came.

He was already scanning the next approach when the vibration came.

The kind of pulse the communication device made when someone on the other end had pressed the activation seal more than once. Noel registered it without looking down, his eyes still tracking a ridge line two hundred meters out where something large had moved briefly into view before disappearing behind a spire of rock.

The device pulsed again.

He reached into his Dimensional Pouch without hurrying, fingers closing around the artifact and drawing it out. The runes along its surface were lit with a steady glow rather than the soft idle shimmer it carried when dormant. Someone had been trying to reach him for at least a minute.

He pressed the seal.

The connection opened immediately.

"Noel."

Elyra’s voice was calm. That was the first thing he noticed. She had not lost control of it, had not allowed panic to surface in the way most people would under pressure. But beneath the steadiness there was something compressed, something held carefully in place the way you hold a flame still against wind.

"You need to come back now."

Noel didn’t speak yet. He was already reading the silence between her words, the quality of her breathing, the half-second delay before she continued.

"It’s our daughter."

Another pause. Shorter this time.

"She’s coming. And she needs you here."

The ridge line where the creature had disappeared no longer mattered. The 99% sitting behind his eyes, patient and precise, receded completely. Noel looked at the device in his hand for exactly one second, then looked at Noir.

She was already on her feet.

Her ears were forward and her eyes had shifted from the horizon to him, reading his posture the way she always did before he said anything. Her tail had gone still. Not from tension, but from focus. She already knew. She had heard every word.

"I’m on my way," Noel said into the device.

He didn’t wait for a response. He pressed the seal again to close the connection and slid the artifact back into his Dimensional Pouch in the same motion.

The mountains stretched out around him, enormous and indifferent. An hour ago he had been calculating what sequence of encounters might close the last percentage before nightfall. The right creature at the right altitude, enough resistance to push the system past its final threshold. He had mapped three possible routes and ranked them by mana efficiency.

None of that existed anymore.

’Ready?’ Noir asked, her voice quiet but already moving with him in intent.

Noel adjusted the strap at his shoulder and turned away from the ridgeline without looking back at it.

"Yes."

He didn’t walk toward the teleportation circle carved into the platform behind him. The circle was reliable, but it required activation time and a stable mana feed into the anchor core. Neither of those things was what the next ten seconds called for.

He raised one hand slightly, grounding his focus the way he always did before long-distance movement. No gathering storm of mana. No visible distortion bending the air around him.

"Spatial Shift."

The mountains folded away without ceremony.

The warmth hit him before his vision fully adjusted.

One breath of thin mountain air, and then the familiar scent of the mansion in Valon replaced it completely. Noel stood in the entrance corridor, the stone floor solid beneath his boots, the soft glow of interior lanterns settling around him. His mana reserves registered the cost of the Spatial Shift immediately, a sharp drop that he felt in his chest like a fist closing around empty space. Long-distance folding without the circle’s anchor support was not designed to be casual. He had crossed continents in a single step, and his body knew it.

He exhaled once and let the discomfort settle without fighting it.

Noir materialized beside him a heartbeat later, her small form stepping out of his shadow and onto the corridor floor. She shook herself once and looked up at him briefly.

The mansion was already in motion.

Voices carried from the upper wing, overlapping and purposeful. Footsteps crossed above his head in quick, measured rhythms. Through the far end of the corridor a healer he didn’t recognize moved past a doorway carrying folded cloth, her white coat clean but her posture carrying the focused urgency of someone already deep in work.

Noel didn’t run. Running would tell him nothing faster than walking quickly, and it would cost him mana he had just spent a significant portion of on the journey here.

He took the stairs two at a time.

The upper corridor was brighter than the rest of the mansion, two additional lamps placed along the wall outside the furthest room. The door was not fully closed. A thin line of warm light pressed through the gap, and from behind it came movement, quiet voices, and the kind of deliberate stillness that a room full of people trying to stay calm produces.

Noel pushed the door open.

Charlotte was the first to see him. She stood near the far wall, her expression caught between relief and residual tension, and the moment she registered him her shoulders dropped half an inch. She gave him a small nod without speaking.

Selene was beside her, arms loosely folded, eyes already on him the moment he stepped through.

The healers occupied the center of the room with the practiced efficiency he recognized from Nicolas’s birth, their movements unhurried but constant.

And Elyra was there.

She was sitting upright against the pillows, her black hair loose and damp at the temples, falling across her shoulders in a way Noel almost never saw it. She kept it controlled as a rule, pinned or tied, every strand placed with the same deliberate care she applied to everything else. Like this, loose and undone, she looked different. Not lesser. Just closer to something she rarely allowed anyone to see.

Her gray eyes found him the instant he appeared in the doorway, and for a moment the composure she had held across an entire continent’s worth of distance cracked just slightly at the edges.

Not in fear.

In relief.

"You’re here," she said, and the words came out quieter than she had probably intended.

Noel crossed the room and reached for her hand. Her fingers closed around his immediately, tighter than she would normally allow herself in front of others.

"I’m here," he replied.

Her jaw tightened briefly as something passed through her that she absorbed without sound, her grip pressing harder against his hand for three seconds before easing.

"You arrived quickly," she said.

"I used Spatial Shift directly," Noel replied. "Didn’t even go to the circle. I wanted to get here fast."

Elyra’s gray eyes searched his face for a moment. "You know she could have waited a little longer."

"I couldn’t," he said simply.

A breath of silence followed. Then the corner of Elyra’s mouth lifted, just barely, the kind of smile she reserved for moments she hadn’t planned on. She looked forward again without saying anything else, but her grip on his hand didn’t loosen.

One of the healers moved closer and spoke to her in a low, steady voice, and Elyra answered with the same precision she brought to every negotiation she had ever conducted. Even now, even here, she did not surrender control entirely.

She simply allowed Noel to hold her hand.

And she did not let go.