Yuder hesitated for a moment before asking,

“Did you... really think that?”

Back when he’d first visited Ghilandre Hill, Inon had once mentioned the day Luma left. With a blank face, he’d simply said: “I woke up one day and he’d left. Said it was his final act of help, swapped out his arm, and disappeared.”

There had been a trace of bitterness at the Great Mage disappearing without any word, but that was it. Yet now Yuder wondered—had he, back then, harbored even darker thoughts?

Meeting Yuder’s cautious gaze, Inon gave a dry laugh and tousled his hair again.

“I had plenty of stupid thoughts as a kid. I figured he'd at least come back once before dying... but when someone doesn’t show up for way past a human’s natural lifespan, yeah, you start thinking dumb things. Even when you know it’s not true, you can’t always stop those thoughts from creeping in. You get that, right?”

Inon, for someone who’d lived so long, was surprisingly honest with his emotions. But that didn’t mean he was just like a normal human. If Yuder thought about it, Inon only ever expressed emotion when it was on behalf of someone else—never for himself.

He’d never shown loneliness despite having no one to share his long life with. He never seemed particularly affected by how others treated or thought of him.

He seemed more human than most people... yet stood a step apart from them.

Still, the fact that Inon hadn’t always been like that left a strange feeling in Yuder’s chest.

And it reinforced something that had been growing clear—Luma, the Great Mage, had meant a great deal to Inon.

“I was just reminiscing about my childhood and cracked a joke. Quit looking so grim.”

“Alright.”

Yuder quietly nodded, and Inon sipped the rest of his tea.

“Anyway... I get now why you told me about your grandfather before the journal. You think Luma might’ve created that mage sect before leaving, and you wanted to know if your grandfather’s identity had something to do with it?”

“Yeah.”

When Yuder and Kishiar had first encountered information about the sect, they’d immediately thought of Luma. It sounded like exactly the kind of thing the Great Mage would’ve created—something to preserve knowledge and warn future generations.

But Inon had heard it all in reverse—first the details about Yuder’s grandfather, then the contents of the journal. As Luma’s guardian, would he reach the same conclusion?

The answer was simple.

“There’s no precedent, but if you’re asking me whether Luma could’ve created a spell called ‘the Great Mage’s Blessing’ and formed a sect to fulfill its requirements... hm. It’s not impossible. If it’s Luma, then yeah, I think he could’ve done it.”

“Really?”

“I’m not saying it would’ve been easy. Even if he did manage to create it and try it, there’s no way to guarantee it worked out the way he planned.”

“You think other Great Mages could’ve done the same?”

“Hard to say. I can’t claim to know every mage’s capabilities. But...”

Inon trailed off, falling into thought.

“If we think based on the outcome... A sect that teaches if you live kindly and accept the magical revolution, you might receive the Great Mage’s Blessing? It sounds dumb. But when you think about it—maybe it was a filter. A way to find people who were at least clear-headed enough not to reject the magic revolution and not ignore the world’s dangers.”

Could it really work like that?

Yuder blinked, surprised by the perspective. Inon kept talking.

“I haven’t seen their crest or anything, but if I had to guess, I’d say it functions like a magic circle. These days, mages try to cram everything into a single array because mana’s so scarce, and people treat that like some great feat. But really, it’s nothing. A magic circle’s just a key to determine when to activate a power.”

A key on its own holds no power. It’s just a lump of metal unless used. But when it opens a door—what’s behind that door becomes accessible. As Inon explained this, he stared into some unknown point in space.

“And so far, there’ve been two people who seem to have used that key. A mage who miraculously healed while saving others from a monster. And a mage who survived a monster incident and raised you. Too similar to be coincidence. That’s probably why Sallandin suspected him.”

“......”

“A sect where only people who can’t ignore the world’s dangers would be accepted. Mages who rescued others in monster-related disasters. Miraculous healing or transformation that followed... If that’s the criteria and the result of a magic called the Great Mage’s Blessing—”

Inon’s voice lowered as he sank deeper into thought... and eventually stopped speaking entirely. Yuder waited in silence as he stared blankly at his hands.

Then suddenly—

“...Wait a sec.”

He finished off the tea in his cup in one gulp and slammed it down with a clack. Then he jumped to his feet, grabbed a bundle of rolled-up papers from his bag on the bed, and tossed it to Yuder.

“Here.”

“What is it?”

“Notes I copied while I was at Ghilandre Hill. I cut out all the useless stuff and just kept the summaries. Look at the second page.”

Yuder flipped a page. Messy handwriting filled the sheet.

‘The Legend of the Dragon Mezemevlen’

“It’s one of the old stories Luma collected. To summarize: there was an evil dragon called Mezemevlen. After he died, he used his power to leave behind his soul, which entered the bodies of other, kind-hearted dragons and caused chaos.”

At first, no one understood why good dragons had suddenly started behaving strangely. But through the sacrifice of one of the kind dragons, the truth was revealed. The dragons then combined their sacred powers to expel Mezemevlen’s soul and banish it forever to the place of the dead.

“In human terms—it’s like demonic possession. You’ve heard of that, right?”

Stories about demons possessing humans and doing evil... Yuder thought he might’ve come across one somewhere.

“...Yeah, I think so.”

“Luma apparently realized from this story that it was possible to separate the soul from the body by one’s own power. And that it might be possible to transfer that soul into another body. That was the insight that led to creating me. Anyway...”

Inon took a breath, glancing at the papers in Yuder’s hand. There was a hesitation on his face that Yuder had never seen before.

Yuder wondered what he was about to say—and then, as soon as he heard it, his mind blanked.

“Um... hypothetically, right. If ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the problem is not being able to act directly because of limits like lifespan and time—then wouldn’t it make sense to create a magic that lets you transfer your soul into someone else’s body?”

“...What?”

“If the person who created that sect thought like that, it’d make a weird kind of sense. I’m not saying it was definitely Luma... but honestly, who else would’ve come up with something like that and actually tried it?”

Even as he spoke, Inon looked half-incredulous, half-unsure. And Yuder felt something flash through his mind like a bolt of lightning.

The Great Mage Luma had already proven that it was possible to artificially merge soul and body—he had done so when he created Inon. He had studied the soul, the body, and time more deeply than anyone else.

Could he have ultimately risked even his own soul for the sake of the future?

Of course, this wouldn’t be exactly the same as creating Inon. But... in some ways, it didn’t feel all that different either.

If it were me...

Yuder imagined what he would’ve done if he were Luma.

...Even if the odds were low, I’d still try. Of course I would.

If he’d succeeded once, he might’ve believed he could do it again. No—he definitely would have. And even if he thought he might fail... was there truly a better option?

There was no way to know.

A chill traced down his spine.