Come to think of it, camp was already in its second half.

I’ll get to see him in a few days!

Dad, who was away on business...

Now that we were apart, I missed him all over again.

Dad, the strongest of all, please come back safe and healthy without so much as a scratch, and pleeease—

teach me how to jump rope...

******

“......”

Leviathan sniffed the air for no particular reason.

What is this? It feels like my daughter is calling for me with all her heart.

He was leaning against a gap in the barren ruins.

Despite the days-long march, he showed no sign of fatigue, but his expression alone was growing more haggard by the day.

“Her eyes are bright, her nose is adorable, her mouth is pretty...”

He muttered with his head lowered.

One of the knights, unable to stand it anymore, asked, 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

“...What are you doing?”

“Looking at my daughter.”

The heroic Duke coldly replied as he lovingly stroked a gold locket.

“......”

The knight walked away with a slightly exhausted expression. It was starting again.

Just then, a blue-haired knight approached.

“May I... look too?”

“I’ll grant special permission.”

“Thank you.”

Leon admired the tiny Rubian inside the locket together with Leviathan. It was a real blessing that his lord was such a generous man.

Whew...

He’d charged himself up by looking at his daughter’s face, so—

“So. What do we do about that now?”

Leviathan put away the locket and raised his head.

Dry lightning cracked across the darkened sky. Not a single drop of rain fell, which only made the weather feel even more ominous.

“The Mage King is moving in person. There really must be something there.”

Leon clenched and unclenched his fist as he muttered.

The Delcan Ruins.

Leviathan had just returned from scouting them.

Through the crowd of mages rushing about in a frenzy, one man had appeared, dragging long priestly robes behind him.

Beautiful in appearance, but with eyes dead and blackened—king of those loathsome mages.

You were right, Ditrian.

Leviathan thought of the Emperor’s face.

Wearing a look of near-obsession, the Mage King vanished through the underground entrance to the ruins.

“It looked like they’d found some kind of strange entrance. But...”

Leon added with a frown,

“Why are they collecting the corpses of dark creatures? They’d already burned them all.”

“Well...”

Leviathan flicked the unlit end of his cigarette with his finger.

That was right.

Near the underground entrance to the ruins, the corpses of dark creatures—supposedly all dealt with already—had been piled high.

And they were... dark creatures unlike any they had ever seen before.

“Did they discover them underground in those ruins?”

What in the world were they trying to do?

Leon muttered uneasily.

“Dark magic...”

Leviathan startled himself with the words that slipped from his mouth. Could it be that they had found some clue about dark magic down there?

A sharp gleam lit his eyes.

At once, the adjutants stiffened at the sudden change in the air.

“We need to gather evidence.”

“Evidence? But we aren’t mages... how exactly are we supposed to do that?”

It wasn’t as if they could drag dark creatures around and ride off on horseback with them.

Leviathan knew that too, so he fell into thought for a moment. Then something suddenly came to him.

“Ah.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a small object.

“This glass bottle...”

It was a glass bottle tied with a blue ribbon, stained with flecks of blood.

“Looks like a lot of blood splashed onto it.”

“Well... I’ve been carrying it around so much. Anyway, I should be able to store traces of that dark magic in this bottle. In other words, a dark creature corpse.”

“Is it a magic tool?”

Leviathan couldn’t answer easily.

But one thing was certain: using the dark-magic trace that had once been stored in this bottle, he had been able to reach the place where the dark mage was.

“Then I’ll go secretly tonight—”

Leviathan shook his head.

“No. If that lunatic notices something all of a sudden, it’ll be trouble... I’ll go myself.”

No matter how seasoned his knights were, there was a limit to how well they could move while evading the eyes of the Mage King.

Only Leviathan himself could carry it out with certainty.

“We’re ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) sorry, my lord.”

The knights apologized, looking ashamed.

“We move after sunset.”

As he tucked the glass bottle away again, he turned his head slightly.

“But... catching rats should be within your abilities, right?”

At that, Leon turned his gaze to the same place Leviathan was looking.

The ruins, twisted into complete disarray.

For some time now, they had felt the presence of another watcher from a crack in the wreckage well away from them.

“Leave it to me.”

Leon stepped forward.

And not long after—

“Aaaah! P-please, just spare me! Just spare me, please!”

A grimy mercenary covered head to toe in dust dropped to his knees with a thud.

“So.”

Leviathan planted a firm foot on the man’s knee.

“What exactly are you supposed to be, lurking around like that?”

“I-I’m here for a similar reason too... Actually, we might even be on the same side?”

“......”

“Hahahahaha. Please let me live.”

Allen bowed quickly and begged with an awkward laugh.

*****

The next day.

“Professooor!”

“You’re here.”

I huffed along as I walked over.

Yuliope, who had been waiting for me in front of the administration building, swiftly took my basket from me.

“Should we just meet in the dining hall from now on? That’s fairly heavy...”

“It’s okay! They said today’s strawberry sandwich day!”

“Oh ho.”

“There was soooo much whipped cream in it!”

Who on earth was the genius who first decided to put strawberries and whipped cream together? That person had to have been brilliant.

I chattered on without realizing how excited I sounded, and Yuliope smiled and stroked my hair.

“I see. Let’s go in first. I have a great many things to say.”

Yuliope looked incredibly bright.

That smiling face alone was enough to tell me that the problem in the Rare Books Archive had been solved.

“Yes! Strawberry sandwich!”

“I hope you’ll at least eat half of it today. Every time, you don’t even finish hal— hm? Miss Rubian. Your knee is scraped.”

Yuliope looked down at my bandaged knee.

“Oh, I got hurt jumping rope yesterday. I was bad at it, so...”

I had hurt again the same spot that had gotten scraped because of Haben.

“......”

“Professor?”

Yuliope fell silent, and when I called him in confusion, he muttered in a low voice,

“...Professor Jex was in charge, wasn’t he?”

Gasp. What was with that tone?

“Y-yes, yes... Why?”

My eyes blinked rapidly at the strangely chilled sound of his voice.

“How the hell is that bastard managing his class?”

Did he just... say bastard? Professor Yuliope, who might be a little insane about salary but was still usually pretty mild and sensible?

When our eyes met, he gave a rough little smile.

“Ah, don’t worry. That bastard is my junior from the Academy.”

Is that the issue here?

Whether it was or not, Yuliope wore a cool smile as he mentally drafted a correctional training curriculum for his junior.

I stared at him, a little appalled.

Somehow...

This felt familiar...

Then, all of a sudden, I smiled.

“Still, this is kind of moving...”

“Hm? What is?”

“You’re getting angry because you were worried about me, Professor!”

“Huh?”

At that, the young professor looked at me like he’d just heard something absurd.

“If there’s a problem in class, it becomes a problem for my salary too.”

“......”

“Miss Rubian. I hate to say this, but when you talk to your parents... please put it nicely, all right? Understood? And if you do tell on someone, tell on Jex only. Please refrain from mentioning Professor Yuliope as much as possible...”

“Ugh... Professor, you dummy!”

Yuliope laughed, ho ho.

“You salary idiot!”

Honestly, it was ridiculous!

But very unexpectedly, Yuliope taught me how to jump rope that morning.

It seemed what I’d said about getting hurt because I was bad at it had bothered him after all.

“Hm. First of all, the rope is too long.”

“Really?”

“That makes it hard to clear.”

“Oooh.”

Professor, efficiently adjusting the rope for me.

“And instead of thinking, I’ll swing my arms first and then jump, try thinking that you start jumping as you start swinging.”

“Mmm...”

Standing in the yard behind the administration building, I slowly turned his words over in my head, then swung the rope and jumped at the same time.

“Gasp.”

It worked!

It worked!

I jumped rope!

“Professooor!”

“You did very well.”

Wouldn’t Yuliope be better off teaching gym class than researching old books?

He smiled softly and stroked my hair.

“Remember that feeling and keep practicing, and you’ll be able to do all sorts of things!”

“All sorts of things...?”

“Jumping on one foot, or swinging the rope twice in one jump...”

Those kind of advanced techniques?!

“I’ll work hard!”

When I brightened and declared it with shining eyes, Yuliope nodded as if pleased.

Bright sunlight poured down over both of us. Yuliope raised a hand to shade his eyes and glanced up at the sky for a moment.

“It’s been a while since I came outside like this. I’m always either in my research office or the library...”

I glanced at Yuliope’s now somewhat brighter face and jumped the rope one more time. I still couldn’t do it continuously, but this was enormous progress!

“Miss Rubian.”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to go to the Rare Books Archive with me during free time today? Tomorrow is the last day, after all.”

Thud. The jump rope slipped from my hand.

“Really?”

“Yes. Actually...”

Yuliope smiled.

“The problem in the Rare Books Archive has been solved.”