Chapter 68: The Headmaster’s Suspicion

Caelus stood inside the Headmaster’s office, the door already closed behind him, his hand still at his side as he met the man’s gaze.

Dover sat in a chair that was far too large for his current body, his oversized robes hanging from his small frame in loose folds. His blond hair fell across his forehead, and his childish blue eyes held the same amusement Caelus remembered from years ago.

They stared at each other for a while.

"Time really flies," Dover said.

Caelus said nothing.

"I remember when you were about my size. We used to spend time together, and now look at you."

The words pulled an old memory from him.

It had been before his Awakening, back when the Vespera children still spent their afternoons together without the weight of expectations hanging so heavily over them. Caelus had been younger then, and Dover had appeared in his child form without revealing who he really was.

They hadn’t known.

Caelus had approached him first, mostly because the strange child had been standing alone while they played nearby. It hadn’t taken long before the rest of the siblings joined them, and for the better part of an afternoon, they had simply played together.

Near sunset, the strange boy had suddenly walked toward the corridor leading deeper into the Vespera estate.

Then he had opened one of the enormous doors leading into the Patriarch’s study.

The memory of the siblings staring through the doorway still remained strangely vivid. None of them had possessed the strength to enter that room, and none had been permitted to do so without their father’s approval. Yet this child had simply opened the door and walked through it as though he owned the entire estate.

They had been impressed.

They had also been jealous.

It wasn’t until later that they learned the truth.

The child they had played with had been a Primordial who had been serving as the Headmaster of the Primordial Academy for longer than any of them could properly comprehend.

Caelus’s gaze returned to the present.

Dover was still watching him.

"Why have you summoned me, Headmaster?"

Dover puffed out his cheeks.

"When did you become so cold? I suppose heartbreak changed you. Now I understand why the saintess gave up on you."

Caelus almost lost his composure.

Instead, he looked toward the empty space beside the desk.

"Where is Veyra?"

Dover’s pout vanished, his lips stretching into a smile.

Dover continued with a grin. "I sent your master on a duty. Don’t worry. She’ll be back by tomorrow. She wouldn’t want to miss her disciple receiving the Academy’s Apex title."

"Even if she doesn’t make it, I’ll be there for you. You’re my grand-disciple, after all."

His voice carried such exaggerated excitement that Caelus had to remind himself that the person sitting in front of him was one of the oldest beings in the room.

Then the amusement vanished from Dover’s eyes.

The air in the room seemed to grow heavier, pressing against Caelus’s skin. The shift was subtle at first, almost imperceptible, but the playful presence that had filled the room moments before was gone.

A low rumble emerged from Dover’s throat.

It was too deep to have come from the body of a child.

"Now that the games are out of the way..."

Bones shifted beneath Dover’s skin with wet pops and sharp cracks. His small frame stretched upward in violent bulges, joints expanding as his body rebuilt itself in seconds. Something seemed to writhe beneath his skin before pushing outward, reshaping muscle and bone together. His blond hair faded, losing its color until gray replaced it entirely.

The child was gone.

An elderly man now occupied the chair, and even that furniture looked too small beneath his enormous frame. His gray hair rested against his shoulders, while the same robes that had looked absurdly large on his younger body now fit him perfectly.

The childish blue eyes remained.

"Do you know why I called you here?"

Caelus answered.

"To congratulate me on getting first place?"

Dover’s expression did not move.

"A bastard son disappears from his home, returns as a C-rank despite possessing D-rank potential, creates three spells in a week that would take most mages months to construct, performs chantless casting when he should barely be capable of forming the spells, and then enters an examination where most competitors are ranked above him only to finish in first place."

His fingers tapped once against the armrest.

"If you ask me, you sound very much like a Contractor."

The word settled heavily between them.

"Or you’re receiving assistance from people you have no business involving yourself with."

Dover reached for a stack of papers resting beside him and tossed them onto the reception table.

They scattered across the surface.

Caelus recognized the diagrams immediately.

Failed spell circles.

The same ones he’d deliberately left behind in the library.

"You knew I was observing you," Dover said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "So you left those there for me to find."

Caelus remained silent for a moment.

The Headmaster wasn’t wrong.

Everything surrounding him was difficult to explain. His knowledge, his growth, his actions, even some of the things he should have been ignorant of had begun piling into a collection of contradictions he could no longer dismiss as coincidence.

He still had gaps in his own understanding.

Some of them concerned the world.

Others concerned him.

Dover watched him carefully.

"You don’t fit anywhere I can place you," he said. "I dislike things I can’t place."

His voice remained calm.

"So tell me, Caelus. Why shouldn’t I neutralize you right now?"

Caelus didn’t move.

For a moment, the room was completely still.

If Caelus were in Dover’s position, he would have reached the same conclusion.

"Because I’m your grand-disciple."

One of Dover’s eyebrows rose.

Caelus continued before the silence could turn into something else.

"Don’t try to bait me into explaining myself. You could have asked what you wanted directly instead of circling around it."

His gaze remained steady.

"If you genuinely believed I was a threat, I wouldn’t still be standing here."

Dover said nothing.

Caelus waited.

Eventually, the old Primordial leaned back.

"You’re right."

His tone lost the last trace of amusement.

"You know too much."

He lifted one of the papers from the table and looked at it without really reading it.

"You fought the Hero like you’d already fought him several times before. You found a labyrinth before the noble houses or the major guilds even understood what had appeared, and you knew how to enter it and how its creatures behaved."

He set the paper down.

"You also knew about your master’s buried incident. Very few people do."

Caelus’s mind paused.

How does he know that?

He dismissed the thought almost immediately.

Never mind. Veyra must have sold me out again.

Dover continued before he could dwell on it.

"I couldn’t care less where you get your information."

His gaze settled on Caelus.

"What matters to me is the information itself."

Caelus looked at him.

"I want first access to anything useful you uncover. You don’t sell information to anyone else unless I approve it, and everything goes through me first. Veyra will act as the intermediary when necessary."

That was far more reasonable than Caelus had expected.

He was about to argue when Dover added, "You’ll receive four times the usual payment if you agree."

"Deal."

The answer came without hesitation.

Caelus kept his expression neutral, but the thought of four times the normal payment made his fingers tighten slightly against his palm.

That would be very useful.

The old man leaned forward.

"Then one more thing."

The shift in tone was subtle, but Caelus noticed it immediately.

"Do you have any idea what the people who ambushed you during the examination were?"

Caelus considered the question before answering.

"The only thing I know is that they were brainwashed. Their cores had been emptied."

That was all he could confirm.

Dover’s expression darkened.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he spoke.

"Watch your back, kid."

There was no humor in his voice.

"People don’t empty their own cores and send themselves into an examination filled with students unless someone gives them a reason to do it."

His eyes sharpened.

"Whatever noticed you during that examination... you may have triggered something you were never meant to encounter."

Caelus frowned slightly, then simply nodded.

"You can go now."

"Thank you, Headmaster."

Caelus bowed deeply and turned, stepping out of the office.

Mira was already waiting in the corridor.

She fell into step beside him. Students and staff moved through the hallway around them, and more than a few looked toward Caelus as they passed.

The attention had become familiar.

The bastard son of House Vespera.

The anomaly everyone seemed to have an opinion about.

Caelus ignored them and continued forward.

After several steps, he noticed someone walking farther down the corridor.

A young boy was watching him.

Dark-green hair.

Caelus recognized him immediately.

Ben.

The Headmaster’s son.

Their eyes met, and neither looked away.

Ben kept walking, and the two passed each other.

Mira glanced over.

"Did you know him before?" ℴ

"No."

Caelus didn’t turn around.

"My first time seeing him."

Mira looked back at Ben, then at Caelus.

"You looked at each other like you’d been enemies for years."

Caelus’s expression remained unchanged.

"It’s really my first time seeing him."

"If you say so, young master."

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A/N: Join discord for character illustrations and other announcements. XD