The Extra's Rise-Chapter 493: Archmage Charlotte (2)

Eva Lopez let out a sigh heavy enough to rattle the hallway sensors into thinking someone had opened a window. Her heels tapped smartly against the marble floors of the Lopez estate, echoing like a slow drumbeat of impending maternal doom. Her navy-blue hair, pinned back with the sort of grace only a Headmaster could muster at 7 a.m., swayed as she approached her daughter’s door. Again.

Clara had not seen the sun in four days. Or a lecture. Or the inside of a shower, probably.

Mythos Academy — the most prestigious school for magically-inclined prodigies in the world — was closed for the remainder of the year, courtesy of the war in the Eastern continent. Two professors dead. Dozens of third-year students gone. Magic left scorch marks, and grief left silence.

So now, Eva was home. And so was her daughter. But the word present was doing an awful lot of heavy lifting, because Clara had barricaded herself in her room like a hermit whose diet consisted of snacks, ennui, and a general refusal to acknowledge the outside world.

Eva knocked, out of habit rather than hope. The door unlocked with a whisper of mana. It was the only kind of energy Clara seemed willing to exert these days.

Eva stepped inside.

"Food?" Clara asked hopefully, peeking out from her fortress of blankets like a particularly lazy ghost. Then, upon realizing it was her mother and not a tray of something deep-fried and unbalanced, she flopped back down with a defeated groan. "Go away."

Eva folded her arms. There was thunder in that posture. "Clara. I gave you four days."

"Your mistake," came the muffled reply.

Eva twitched.

With the sort of swift, efficient motion that could only come from years of managing hormonal teenage spellcasters and paperwork thicker than spellbooks, she yanked the blanket off.

Clara hissed in protest, curling up tighter in her oversized nightgown, clinging to a teddy bear that looked like it had seen war. She patted the bed blindly, eyes half-closed, hunting for her blanket like a spellcaster seeking lost mana. "Noooooo," she whined, flopping around like a beached seal. "Cold."

Eva’s eyebrow twitched harder. "Get. Up."

"You can’t make me," Clara mumbled, already halfway back to sleep.

Eva stared at her only child, the brilliant, beautiful, utterly infuriating prodigy of the Mind aspect, currently engaged in a full-scale cuddle operation with a pillow.

She’d done her best. Raised Clara alone after her husband died. Made time between academy crises and diplomatic disasters to come home and parent, even if it was just over a meal or a call. She had hoped Clara would be more like her — driven, ambitious, upright in posture and spirit.

Instead, she got Clara. Intelligent. Talented. And possessed of the drive of a sleepy cat in a sunbeam.

Eva knew some of it wasn’t her fault. The girl’s Gift didn’t help — a Mind-type talent that enhanced insight and perception, but made her mind prone to spirals of overthinking, burnout, and, worst of all... apathy. Combine that with natural laziness and inherited Lopez stubbornness, and you had this — a gifted prodigy in theory and a nap enthusiast in practice.

Still. Enough was enough.

"Clara, if you don’t get out of bed in the next ten seconds, I will teleport this mattress into the courtyard," Eva said.

"You wouldn’t."

"I have the coordinates saved."

Clara opened one eye. Her violet gaze was tired, mildly annoyed, and entirely unconvinced. "You’re bluffing."

Eva raised one hand. Mana began to crackle.

Clara sat up.

"Fine," she muttered. "I’ll get up. But only because the bear doesn’t like wind."

Eva exhaled. Victory. Technically.

She stepped out, mentally adding threat of public exposure to her parenting arsenal.

"And shower," Eva said crisply, in the tone of someone who had long ago learned that compromise with teenagers was a myth perpetuated by parenting books and very naïve first-time mothers.

"I did yesterday," Clara whined, her voice a croaky protest muffled by the pillow she was trying to disappear into. Unfortunately for her, Eva was immune to both excuses and time-warped logic.

"You also ate yesterday, and yet here we are again today."

Before Clara could formulate a rebuttal — and it would have been a terrible one — Eva simply walked over, grabbed her daughter like an inconvenient suitcase, and hoisted her up. It might’ve looked a bit absurd to an outsider, since mother and daughter were practically the same height, but Eva Nightshade’s arm strength had once suplexed a rogue chimera during a field trip gone wrong. Clara flailed her limbs like a wet kitten trying to avoid a bath.

"Nooo—put me down—this is oppression—" she squealed, her legs kicking as mana flared up instinctively.

It fizzled out immediately. Eva’s mana pressed down on Clara’s like a celestial boot on a cockroach. Effortlessly dominant.

With the grace of a woman who had done this before, Eva slid open the bathroom door with her elbow and deposited her daughter inside the shower with a parental plonk.

"Shower," she said, crossing her arms. "Or I’ll do it for you."

There was a pause. A dangerous pause.

"...You can clean me," Clara mumbled, eyes half-lidded in that vaguely unhinged way that made other people mistake her sarcasm for insanity.

Eva’s brow twitched hard enough to set off a seismic alarm in the next room. A flick — sharp, efficient, and glowing faintly with mana — struck Clara’s forehead with pinpoint precision.

Ten minutes and one grumpy hair rinse later, Clara finally emerged from the bathroom, trailing steam and dignity in equal amounts. Her long violet hair stuck to the towel she’d thrown over her shoulders, and she looked, for a brief moment, almost alive. The post-shower glow gave her a temporary aura of functionality, and Eva allowed herself a cautious nod of approval.

That was, of course, before Clara zombie-lurched straight past her and dove headfirst back into bed.

"Clara," Eva said flatly, watching the girl wrap herself in her blankets like a sentient burrito.

"I miss Arthur," came the muffled voice from under the covers.

Eva paused, exasperation halting mid-step.

That name again.

Clara was not, by any reasonable definition, a social creature. She didn’t do friends. She barely did classmates. But Arthur Nightingale had somehow managed the impossible — he’d lodged himself in her daughter’s narrow circle of trust, alongside afternoon naps and exactly one brand of pudding.

Eva sighed again, this one far less annoyed and far more... maternal. War had stolen away more than time. Arthur was on the front lines of a continental conflict, and Eva could see now, plainly as daylight, that for Clara, that fact didn’t sit well.

Not because she was afraid he’d die — Clara had full faith in Arthur’s ability to stubborn his way through most supernatural threats.

No, she just missed him. And for Clara, missing someone was as rare and serious as an eclipse.