“Your younger sister?”

Meeting them outside the auditorium, Levian looked back and forth between Yuto and Elun in disbelief.

‘Do they... look alike?’

Yuto’s hair was black with a bluish sheen. Although his eyes glowed purple whenever he used that peculiar magic, they were a cool blue when he was not using it.

Elun had jet-black hair and purple eyes. Their most immediately apparent features were different, but on closer inspection, there was something similar about their faces.

‘No, rather than their looks...’

It was their distinctive air that resembled each other—that vaguely cynical air. Even that was not always the case, though. Yuto was usually terribly cynical, but Levian did not feel it was his natural disposition.

It was an air shaped by everything he had been through. Levian alone knew that, however. Someone unaware of their circumstances might well take Yuto and Elun for siblings.

“It doesn’t matter if we don’t look alike.”

Feeling Levian’s gaze, Yuto spoke.

“My origins are as lowly as they come. Even noble houses have illegitimate children. How much more common would it be among the poor, who are treated like pigs and dogs?”

“P-please don’t say that.”

“I’m not being sarcastic. That’s simply how things are.”

Yuto looked unconcerned.

“We could be two helpless orphans from the slums who met and swore to be brother and sister. Or we could have different fathers or mothers. Prince Shiro said Elun and I were ‘siblings,’ and the headmaster accepted it. That settles the matter.”

“I have absolutely no intention of calling you my big brother.”

Elun’s voice was bleak. Her face looked expressionless, but Yuto caught the faintest furrow in her brows. She truly seemed unwilling to call him that.

[“A good thing he did not call us father and daughter. Had he done so, you would have kept seeing someone else in me during our stay here.”]

Perhaps sensing his gaze, Elun’s lips twisted slightly upward. At the taunt in his head, Yuto narrowed his eyes and glared at her.

‘Don’t say that.’

[“Hmph... I say it because you have looked at me that way so many times. Just as you are free to see something else in me, I am free to find it unpleasant.”]

With that, Elun sharply turned her head away. Yuto watched her for a moment. Perhaps because of what she had said, naturally—yes, naturally—the image of Lia, the daughter he had lost in his previous life, came to mind. Lia, too, used to turn her head away like that when she sulked.

‘Yes, it’s things like this.’

Yuto smiled bitterly. In truth, Lia and Elun had almost nothing in common, yet he kept seeing Lia in her.

‘I’m suffering from trauma myself.’

The convulsions of the students the constellations had controlled during the entrance exam and his own habit of seeing Lia in Elun both stemmed from trauma.

The trauma of failing to protect his daughter right before his eyes made him see Lia in this girl merely because she was beside him, though they looked nothing alike. Pressing his throbbing temple, Yuto shook his head.

“I’m sorry.”

The sudden apology startled Levian. Elun raised her eyes slightly to look at him.

“I’ll try not to do it again. I can’t promise... never. But if I slip up again, I hope you’ll understand.”

“... Hmm. I am merciful, after all. I accept your apology.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Elun nodded, then discreetly held out her right hand to him.

“Give me a candy.”

The Starlit Cloud candy they had won as a prize on the streets of Merchant City last year was still in Void Storage.

She had said she would eat them one at a time when she truly needed one, or when she simply could not lift her spirits. Apparently, this was one of those moments.

‘Did it upset her that much?’

As Yuto tilted his head and brought out the Starlit Cloud candy, Elun’s voice sounded in his mind.

[“It did. I am... myself. The Void’s agent. It displeases me to have you see some other human in me.”]

Well, that was understandable. With a bitter smile, Yuto took out a single Starlit Cloud candy and handed it to Elun. She immediately popped it into her mouth and closed her eyes to savor it. Watching her, Flokiro gulped.

“Ahem...”

Having gathered that Yuto and Elun were communicating through magic, Levian cleared her throat softly.

“First, I’ll show you to the dormitories. Or... would you like a tour of the academy? I don’t think the exam will finish today.”

“Isn’t it too big to see everything today?”

Maria Academy occupied an entire island. Though its total enrollment across all years was fewer than five hundred, the island had everything students could need.

The professors were educators and researchers alike. Each had a laboratory of their own, filled with researchers who had graduated from the academy.

Only nobles of the highest aptitude could enter Maria Academy. Naturally, separate orders of knights and contingents of soldiers were stationed here to protect them. Those alone already numbered in the thousands.

Students learned, professors taught and researched, and knights and soldiers protected them all. Thousands more workers handled the menial tasks so that everyone could devote themselves to their roles. There was even a separate commercial district selling everything needed for life and classes at the academy.

In short, the entire island was a small city serving Maria Academy.

“Ahaha... It is a large island, but not so large that we couldn’t tour it in a day. You see that?”

Smiling brightly, Levian pointed upward. Pure white particles of light drifted where she indicated.

“What makes Maria Academy special is its magical infrastructure, which is far superior to anything outside the island. It’s all thanks to the care of the constellations who bless the students.”

The island was richer in aether than anywhere else in Callisto, and the constellations’ divine authority made magic possible here that could not be realized on the continent.

Students arrived at Maria Academy in carriages, but there was little need for them once inside. To reach a destination, they had only to pass through a gate and arrive in an instant.

“Teleportation magic, something no kingdom or city in Callisto has achieved, is possible on this island.”

Levian spoke with evident pride. She was right. Teleportation magic existed only at Maria Academy. It was technology so far beyond its time that no one else had managed to realize it even by the end of Yuto’s previous life.

“Their care, huh.”

It was not untrue, but Yuto found it difficult to agree. Levian faltered at the chill in his eyes.

“I heard... the screams, but what exactly happened in there?”

“You don’t need the details. Hearing them would only upset you.”

“But...”

“The constellations toyed with humans,” Yuto spat.

“Just for fun. They wouldn’t even let them die. They kept forcing their bodies to move and fight me, no matter how much they begged them to stop.”

The screaming students had given Levian a rough idea of what had happened, but she had not heard all of Yuto’s conversation with the headmaster. His words left her deathly pale.

“How could they...”

Levian herself had a contract with a constellation—the Daughter of Bloom and Decay, who bestowed divine authority specializing in healing magic, pharmacology, and magic that manipulated plants.

Though Levian had never heard her constellation’s voice directly, she had always felt warmth in the power the constellation lent her whenever she used magic. To her, the Daughter of Bloom and Decay was a warm, caring presence, like a mother.

“Not all the constellations behaved that way.”

Yuto acknowledged that much. Not every constellation was cruel and took pleasure in human despair and death. Some might genuinely pity humans and lend them strength with pure intentions.

Yet even those constellations could not be good at all times, unconditionally and absolutely. A thoughtless footstep could crush an insect. That was the kind of beings constellations were.

“Levian Marigold. I don’t know what your constellation is like, but the ones I saw today... seemed more like devils than gods.”

Yuto spoke, looking straight at her. In this life, he had forged a deep bond with Levian, one that would probably continue far into the future.

The choice was hers. He had merely given her something worth considering.

“... Anyway, I’m too mentally exhausted for a tour of the island. I’d like to head to the dormitories and rest for today.”

“All... right. I’ll show you the way. We’ll get there in no time through the gate. Come this way.”

Composing herself, Levian headed toward a gate near the auditorium. Yuto knew its location well enough to find it with his eyes closed, but he could hardly take the lead. He silently followed her.

“What am I to do?”

Emerging from the sweet bliss of the Starlit Cloud candy, Elun abruptly spoke, her expression cold once more.

“Nominally, I am Shirin Ristal’s attendant. But Shirin Ristal has not passed yet. In the unlikely event that she fails, what becomes of me?”

“Princess Shirin will pass.”

Yuto hid the involuntary shift in his expression as he answered.

“Given her personality, she won’t try to earn two hundred points and leave early. But she’s certain to make the final hundred.”

Shirin Ristal. She smiled warmly and treated everyone kindly, but she was not as fragile as she appeared. Though she had put down her sword to devote herself to raising Lia after giving birth, during her academy days she had been an exceptional magic swordswoman who had never fallen out of the top ranks in either the swordsmanship or magic departments.

She was not someone these students could defeat.

‘Even if the students band together to take Shirin down, Shiro won’t allow it. To observe me up close at the academy... and provoke me, he needs Shirin to pass.’

If Shirin failed, it would throw Shiro’s plans into disarray. He must have been putting them together since the Marigold party.

‘You must have noticed Shirin and me taking a liking to each other as we danced. And you must want to dig up information about me by making Elun her attendant.’

That was why Shirin’s failure was simply not going to happen.

“That old headmaster dared tell me I must fulfill my duties as an attendant. What am I to do when Shirin Ristal has not even emerged yet?”

Elun furrowed her brows.

“Since he didn’t say anything about that, you should be able to stay at my place until Her Highness passes.”

“Then the problem is what happens after Shirin Ristal passes. I do not know what an attendant is supposed to do.”

“Princess Shirin won’t make you do an attendant’s work, either. Just stay by her side normally, then come over to my place when she gives you permission.”

Elun pouted. She did not voice any objection, but she clearly disliked the idea of leaving Yuto’s side.

‘Still, I can’t let anyone see me hide Elun away like an Evomon...’

That was not something he could explain away as the result of the Black Mages’ experiments. And with the constellations watching this island from so close by, he and Elun needed to be even more cautious.

“There’s nothing we can do about this. You’ll have to put up with it.”

“Understood.”

Elun nodded, looking a little dejected.

‘Maria Academy...’

Walking toward the gate, Yuto clenched his fist.

‘I’ve finally enrolled.’

Needless to say, he had a compelling reason for going to such lengths to enter the academy.