Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor - Chapter 240: Summit [3]
Chapter 240: Summit [3]
Sniff. Sniff.
“…Archmage?”
After the meeting, for reasons only she understood, Soliette Dominique had dragged Vanitas aside and immediately started sniffing him.
Sniff. Sniff.
Vanitas stared at her flatly. Was this some kind of twisted prank? Soliette was known for her eccentricities and her occasionally questionable sense of humor, but even for her, this seemed excessive.
After several more seconds of sniffing every inch of the air around him, Soliette finally looked up at him and frowned.
“You’re using dark magic, aren’t you?”
“….”
Vanitas returned the gesture with a frown of his own.
“I wouldn’t say practicing,” he said. “I’d say I have no choice but to use it openly now.”
“Vanitas…”
The act of using dark magic was taboo. A stain that scholars were expected to avoid at all costs.
If the public were to find out, the consequences would be severe. The Scholars Institute alone would tear him apart. And the traditionalists would make his life a living hell.
Soliette crossed her arms. “Just how long have you been hiding it?”
“I’m impressed you aren’t already trying to subdue me.”
She raised a brow at that. The idea itself seemed to offend her.
Truthfully, Soliette held no dogma against dark magic. In her eyes, dark magic was an uncharted frontier. Forbidden, yes, but precisely because of that, ripe for inquiry.
If only those stubborn old fools could differentiate between unconventional research and criminal intent, then perhaps dark mages wouldn’t have been driven into the shadows.
If anything, the stigma had created the very criminals the Institute feared. Persecution bred desperation, and desperation bred monsters.
Dark magic could corrupt its user. Sometimes it killed them. Sometimes it hollowed out their minds and eroded their sanity spell after spell.
But wasn’t that an area worthy of study?
Wasn’t the purpose of research to explore what was unknown, dangerous, and misunderstood?
“If the corruption had a cause, then surely it could have a countermeasure. If it had a pattern, then perhaps it had an antidote.
Soliette believed in such philosophies. But belief and practice were two very different roads.
As the Archmage, Soliette never ventured into forbidden magic herself. There were lines she simply could not cross while holding her position, no matter how curious she was or how compelling the research might be.
“Show me,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Your magic. Show me—” She stepped closer, then froze. “Ah, what the hell is that?”
Only now did she notice the purple veins along his neck. She reached out to touch them, but Vanitas batted her hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
Soliette clicked her tongue. “Wow, this kid… Back then, you were begging to marry me. Sometimes, I wonder where that sweet little boy ran off to.”
Vanitas stared at her, unimpressed, and ignored her nonsense entirely.
“I’ll show you,” he said. “Just not here.”
“Show what?”
Another voice chimed in from behind them.
Both turned to see Elsa Hesse leaning against the broken archway, her hands clasped behind her back.
“Perfect timing,” Soliette said, pointing straight at Vanitas’s neck. “Take a look at this.”
“What a way to greet someone,” Vanitas muttered.
But the two women ignored him. They stepped in close and thoroughly examined the mark, as if he were some exhibit in a research lab. Their brows wrinkled in identical disapproval, which only deepened as they exchanged a glance.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?” Soliette asked.
“Undoubtedly.”
Then they both turned their synchronized disapproval onto Vanitas.
“You consumed a demon,” they said together.
“…Yes.”
Elsa sighed. “Just how much trouble have you gotten yourself into?”
Soliette stepped closer and pressed the back of her hand lightly to Vanitas’s forehead, as if checking the temperature of a sick child.
“Trouble aside, are you feeling alright? I noticed it even before the meeting started, but you were quite pale.”
In front of these two geniuses, there was no point pretending. Vanitas said nothing for a moment. He lowered himself onto a half-collapsed pillar, sitting the way one would in a counseling session.
“I’m dying.”
Silence fell hard.
Neither woman assumed it was a joke. Vanitas didn’t have the personality for jokes like that, not even on his best days.
“I was told I had two years left,” he said. “But after using dark magic, the progression accelerated. I have a year now.”
Again, silence. Soliette and Elsa exchanged a look before turning back to him. Soliette spoke first.
“What kind of illness?”
“Mana Core Degeneration Syndrome.”
Their eyes widened instantly.
A terminal cancer with no survivors on record. By the time symptoms were visible, it was already too late. Some treatments could buy months, a year at most, but never a cure. Every attempt at one had failed throughout history.
“When did it start?” Elsa asked.
“During high school,” Vanitas replied. “But I only found out a couple of years ago.”
The two women looked down, struggling to process it.
Even if he had told them back then, what could they have done? They were not medical professionals. And even the greatest medical mages had never discovered a cure, only ways to stretch the remaining time.
Soliette crouched down to meet his eyes. She knew this was also the same terminal illness that had taken Vanitas’s mother. But to think her own son suffered from it as well.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked.
Vanitas shrugged. “What good would it have done? Panic? Pity? I had things to accomplish. And so little time to waste.”
“Then why did you start using dark magic?” Elsa asked. “You… Honestly, you never fail to surprise me. Why would you even attempt something like that?”
“I had no choice.”
To defeat the Lily of the Valley, dark magic was necessary.
Vanitas Astrea was not the type of man who reached for forbidden power on a whim. If he claimed he had no choice, then the circumstances must have been dire enough that even he had been pushed into a corner.
Neither woman pressed him further. They didn’t need the details to understand the implications behind his words.
Soliette placed a hand on his head, lightly ruffling his hair. Her expression softened to a look she used to give him back when he was a scrawny boy sitting across from her during private lessons, trying to memorize spellformulas beyond his age.
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” she said. “Jeez… you’re still causing trouble even at this age.”
Vanitas let out a bitter chuckle. He rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his coat before facing them again.
“Please lend me your strength, Headmaster Elsa. Archmage Soliette.”
“Of course,” Elsa said. “We’ve already made our decision.”
Soliette nodded beside her. “We’ll attack the Theocracy together. That was the agreement.”
“And beyond that.”
“Beyond that?”
Vanitas lowered his gaze. His eyes turned cold enough to silence the air around them.
“I will bury this Empire.”
* * *
That evening, the Archmage made her declaration. For the first time in years, an influential figure of her stature openly took a political stance.
“Anyone who dares to stain the Empire with blood will pay the price with their own blood in return.”
If the words had come from anyone else, they would have been dismissed as bluster. But this was Soliette Dominique, the Archmage, the greatest mage of the current era.
Her voice alone could shake the whole continent.
This was how things should have been from the beginning. Yet for years, Soliette had been occupied hunting every lingering trace of Araxys’s apostles and prophet. She never involved herself in Aetherion’s politics, allowing the Empire to govern itself, believing her neutrality was the proper stance for a Great Power.
But the rot had spread too far. Aetherion’s corruption had festered to the point that even someone who vowed absolute neutrality could no longer stay silent. Even a Great Power had to intervene.
Because of that single statement, the underground districts beyond the capital began to settle.
Word of the Archmage’s warning spread faster than any decree the Empire had ever issued. Bandits who once roamed freely now reconsidered every step. Smugglers rerouted their paths entirely. Even the most stubborn gangs retreated into hiding.
For the first time in months, merchants traveled across borders, cities, and villages without constant fear of attack. Caravans returned to the main roads. Trade lines reopened. Inns that had been empty for weeks saw customers again.
The effect of Soliette’s words restored order where the Empire had failed.
However, for Vanitas, this was only the beginning.
“Hey, isn’t that Marquess Astrea…?”
The Council of Owls. An assembly of lower nobles who had banded together in the hopes of restructuring the noble hierarchy and stripping power from the upper houses.
A movement originally backed by Franz himself, used to keep the lower nobles loyal and under supervision. But with Franz losing his grip on the Empire and barely appearing in public, the council had begun to move on its own.
Vanitas walked down the red carpet and took a seat near the center, settling into the crimson cushioning while the masked chickens flinched.
’Who invited him?’
’How did he even find the current meeting’s location?’
’Has the Emperor sold us out?’
But none dared voice it aloud.
If Soliette was feared for her overwhelming power, Vanitas Astrea was feared for his cruelty.
Everyone in the room had heard the rumors. A few months back, he had slaughtered an entire church mid-sermon without batting an eye. The story of that massacre had spread through the Empire, branding a crime against faith so severe that the clergy still clamored for his head.
Vanitas crossed his legs and leaned back. He surveyed the room like it belonged to him.
“Continue,” he said. “Don’t let me interrupt. I’m quite curious what all of you have been plotting lately.”
The room fell so silent that even the rustle of masked feathers seemed too loud.
Vanitas tilted his head. “What? I’m on your side. If I weren’t, it wouldn’t just be the carpet that’s red.”
One of the masked nobles finally gathered the courage to speak.
“M-Marquess Astrea… forgive us. It’s just… we did not expect your presence here tonight.”
“I can tell.” Vanitas rested his elbow on the arm of his seat and propped his chin on his knuckles. “So? Let’s hear it. What grand ideas do the Council of Owls have for saving this rotting Empire?”
No one answered.
Vanitas’s expression grew bored. “Don’t tell me you’ve gathered here every week just to complain about the upper nobles. What a productive use of time.”
A murmur fluttered through the masked faces. Someone cleared his throat.
“We… We have been discussing the possibility of restructuring the courts,” another ventured. “Redistributing authority… removing corrupt houses… installing a fairer system for the commonfolk…”
“So in short, you want a rebellion. Much like the lower classes?”
“That’s not—”
“Call it what it is.” Vanitas continued. “You want to topple the nobles who have stepped on your throats for generations. And you want someone with actual power to make it happen.”
Vanitas smirked.
“Good news,” he said. “You’ve summoned the perfect monster for the job.”
The council froze, unsure if that was a promise or a threat.
“Now then. Why don’t you tell me exactly how far you’re willing to go?”
“T-Then… Marquess Astrea… just to be clear,” one of the masked nobles began, “even we do not condone the recent actions of the working class. The Empress’s murder… that is far too much. We don’t wish for anything similar to happen.”
“Oh, so you’re the righteous ones?” Vanitas leaned back, tapping a finger against his armrest. “You want revolution without blood and change without sacrifice. How noble.”
A few masks turned away as if ashamed or offended. He couldn’t tell.
“We are not revolutionaries,” another said defensively. “We simply want reform. Aetherion is collapsing under corruption. The commonfolk are suffering. Even the middle nobility can no longer breathe.”
“Before you talk about reform, reform your entire council first. Do you people even realize how many rats you have hiding among you? Why do you think you’ve achieved nothing since the day you formed this little club? That’s right. I would know. I received an invitation to your meetings in the past. I’m sure whoever is leading this whole mess is aware.”
A few masks twitched toward one another, as if trying to sniff out traitors right then and there.
“You’ve been leaking information since the beginning. Every plan in this room found its way to the very people you claim to oppose. And you fools sat here month after month, wondering why nothing ever changed.”
“….”
“So here’s my advice. Before you dream of overthrowing corruption, find your own. Purge the rot in your circle before you think of purging it from the Empire.”
A trembling voice broke in. “H-How do we… even begin to know who…?”
“That’s for you to figure out. I’ll return in three days. If nothing changes by then, I’ll purge the entire council myself.”
Just like that, the council was thrown into chaos.
