32. Aslan Seminar (2)
In the Founding City, Camelon, quite a great many hidden events existed.
Every single illusion-draped alley touched by dusk held its own story and mysterious secret, and every mage living here carried a deep history of their own.
It was, quite literally, the city of events.
But as a student still enrolled in the academy, one could not freely enter Camelon, so to players, all those countless events were little more than a feast seen from behind glass.
That was why one of the very few ways to enter Camelon—the ticket to attend the Aslan Seminar—was a fairly important element to players.
As for me, I was not especially interested in Camelon’s events, but there was one thing that at least made me curious enough to want to come.
[Lirama Fate Divination]
A peculiar NPC who predicted the future lived here, and if the player came as the character Flame, she would say this the very first time they met.
“The child chosen by fate has arrived. Come closer and tell me your story.”
At first, people thought it was simply an NPC recognizing the player, but if you visited with other characters, she gave entirely different lines.
If you came as Ma Yuseong, she welcomed you with, “The child who cannot belong anywhere has come.”
If you came as Hae Wonryang, she welcomed you with, “The child conflicted at the crossroads of choice has come.”
Because of that fortune-teller NPC’s way of speaking—as though she saw straight through people—players of various characters came to see her for quite some time.
But I had never known what she said to Baek Yuseol.
There was no special reason for that.
It was simply because I, the only player who had ever used the character Baek Yuseol, had never come to Camelon.
So I was curious.
Would the fortune-teller’s prophecy work in reality too, or not?
Would she give me a prophecy as well?
Would there be some penetrating line that saw right through me?
Had she even expected me to come?
‘Here?’
The shop was located deep inside a labyrinthine alley, and unless one was determined, it would have been very difficult to find. Even I kept passing it repeatedly despite checking the map through the Jikbakguri Glasses several times.
Hup!
When I shoved the wooden door open with all my strength, the squeal of its hinges was loud enough to be ridiculous. Just when had this thing last been oiled?
The moment I stepped inside, the stale smell of books hit me.
It was enough to make me want to turn around and run, but I endured it and kept going in.
Inside sat a very short old woman, glaring at me with fearsome eyes.
And then, right away, she said:
“…An unwelcome guest who was never meant to come has arrived. This is no place for you. Get out at once.”
“What?”
I was genuinely flustered, because I had never expected a line like that.
No warning, no lead-up, just get out?
“Uh, I came to have my fortune told…? Like, say, my marriage prospects…?”
“I cannot read your fortune.”
“No, why not?”
The old woman stared at me intently, then slowly shook her head.
“I can see nothing from you.”
What the hell? Wasn’t this just a straight-up scam?
I was so dumbfounded that I turned around to leave—
but at that exact moment, the squeaking door swung open loudly again and someone came tumbling inside with a crash.
“Kyaaaah…!”
It was Flame, the girl with neatly tied black bobbed hair.
Maybe she had grabbed the door wrong by mistake. She rubbed her forehead as she struggled to rise, then met eyes with me.
“Oh, huh? Why are you here, Ahjussi…?”
I looked at her and thought quietly.
In the game world, the character Flame inevitably reached this place.
I had assumed that because I came, Flame would not.
That had been my mistake.
Whether she was a player or not, Flame was still Flame.
I was about to say something to her, but before I could, the fortune-teller spoke first.
“The child chosen by fate has arrived.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
At those words, I could not help but be stunned.
It was the exact same line I had seen in the game.
‘What is this?’
When she threw me out immediately, I had assumed game and reality must differ.
So why was she saying the exact same line to Flame?
…Then why had she not said it to me?
“Uh, I-I’m sorry. I thought I was bracing myself against a wall, I didn’t know there was a door there.”
“I know, child. It was your fate to come here. Come sit. Tell me your story.”
“Uh, I’m actually kind of busy right now…”
“The Aslan Seminar will be delayed by thirty minutes due to the worsening condition of the General Chair.”
“Wh-what?”
Flame blinked and looked at me.
I nodded.
It was true.
That was exactly how it always happened in the original game.
Since I’d seen that text over and over before, I just took it in stride, but…
the fact that this fortune-teller knew it felt strange.
‘Is she really the real thing?’
She definitely seemed to possess some sort of uncanny ability.
Which only made the question worse.
Why had she said those words to me, and only to me?
“Uh… yes…”
Flame hesitated while glancing at me, then eventually sat down across from the fortune-teller.
I watched that, then quietly left the shop.
As long as I remained there, the fortune-teller looked as though she had no intention of opening her mouth.
“Damn it.”
That put me in a rotten mood for nothing.
Camelon, White Magic Tower, Floor 3-109.
Hall of the Founder.
Reflecting the distinctly mage-like trait that higher was always better, the Aslan Seminar was held on the topmost 109th floor of the massive White Magic Tower, which floated triple-layered in the air.
The place had no fewer than twenty-three elevators just to accommodate the enormous number of people using it, and upper-class mages even used simplified warp halls, so there was no need to explain just how impressive the facilities of the White Magic Tower were.
The number of mages formally attending the Aslan Seminar averaged under two hundred, yet that number had hardly ever changed.
It was a rather strange thing.
Even if a certain house possessed a regular attendance right, it should still have been impossible to attend if that family had no mage in the ten-to-twenty age range.
So why was it that way?
The answer, of course, was painfully obvious.
In order to attend the Aslan Seminar every year, most prestigious houses adopted children with talent into their families.
As such, roughly half of the people seated here could be said to be puppets who merely borrowed the names of great houses.
It was an ugly cycle that made the Aslan Seminar ever more stagnant.
In the case of the Dromian family, famous for ice magic, it was said that each year they adopted a hundred talented children from the northern regions, then discarded or killed all but the single most exceptional one. That was how the Aslan Seminar, too, had given rise to all sorts of terrible incidents.
“We sincerely apologize to the audience for the delay in the seminar.”
Even as the host apologized, he did not actually look very sorry.
His face plainly said, The Chair is sick—what exactly do you expect us to do about it?
Despite the worsening of his condition, the Chair had still attended the Aslan Seminar.
Surely because he was determined to see this year’s rising stars with his own eyes.
‘What was that…?’
Flame listened to the host’s words while blankly replaying what had just happened.
‘That fortune-teller is actually incredible…?’
Most fortune-tellers were shallow tricksters.
They dug up personal information in advance, then pretended to know things, that kind of thing.
But the fortune-teller she had just met felt different.
That uncanny insight of hers, as though she had seen through the fact that Flame herself was someone who had transmigrated into another body.
The same penetrating awareness that had revealed the worsening of the Chair’s illness.
Flame had gone there by pure chance.
And yet the fortune-teller had called it fate, then given her a few gifts and some loaded advice.
“Your fate has become tangled. You must have many things you’re curious about. Many things you wish to ask.”
“…That’s true.”
“Go to the child blessed with ice.”
“Ice means…”
“Yes. Have that child read the constellations together with you. You may begin to dimly see the path you should walk.”
Honestly, she had not understood even half of it.
So she had wanted to ask Baek Yuseol about it, but unfortunately she had rushed here in such a hurry that she had not even gotten a chance to speak to him.
Baek Yuseol sat a little apart, staring absently at the host, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“Now then, we shall proceed with an address from the General Chair of the Magic Society, Mage Aryumun, who made this gathering possible.”
Clap clap!
There were no cheers.
For a moment, only refined applause filled the Hall of the Founder, and then the Chair’s speech began.
“…Thank you all for gathering. I’m unwell, so may I keep this short? If not, well, I suppose I have no choice…”
“Y-you may, Chair.”
“Mhm… thank you…”
She had assumed, as always, that it would be the usual dull and predictable speech.
But because of his health, and because of the time lost on account of him, the Chair cut his address short and moved quickly.
‘He’s handsome…’
Flame stared blankly at the Chair.
Aryumun, General Chair of the Magic Society.
Though outwardly he appeared to be only in his early twenties, his true age was said to be around one hundred and fifty, and because he was gravely ill, he gave off a gaunt, sickly impression.
But that, somehow, did not make him unpleasant to look at.
Among some of the fans of The Princessly Romance, there had even been people who adored that exact decadent sort of beauty.
Because of how the story developed, sadly, there were very few chances for the protagonist Aizel to become meaningfully entangled with the General Chair, so that pairing never really took off.
“…And with that, let us begin the Aslan Seminar.”
Clap clap clap!
The applause now was even stronger than before.
Flame stopped dwelling on the matter.
From this point on, it was time to truly focus on the Aslan Seminar.
‘Aslan is survival.’
That, at least, was how Flame saw it after reading the original romance fantasy.
The identity of the Aslan Seminar was simple: nearly two hundred geniuses from countless races and prestigious houses gathered, presented their theses, and tore them apart.
Tear down another genius’s knowledge.
Belittle another genius’s magic.
Insult another genius’s character.
Shake another genius’s willpower.
Only by doing that could you survive the Aslan Seminar and secure your place for next year.
Only by lasting in Aslan for as long as possible could you be remembered as the greater genius.
Flame did not particularly want to rely on Aslan’s prestige.
But still, she hated losing.
‘I’ll tear apart every bastard who gets in my way.’
“Hoo…”
Aizel took a deep breath as she prepared to step onto the stage.
Her luck was absolutely rotten.
She was the first presenter.
With nearly two hundred people set to present, the Aslan Seminar went on all day. And at the beginning, when everyone was still physically fresh, that was exactly when the heaviest attacks came.
That was why the prestigious houses and regular participants presented later.
The rising stars, those who were not established, presented first.
‘Don’t get nervous. Just do it exactly the way you practiced.’
My thesis is perfect.
It has no flaw.
Because I put into this thesis a truly special idea that no one had ever once thought of before.
…The only problem was that I could not elevate that special idea into proper theory by myself, and in the end I had needed Baek Yuseol’s help far more than I wanted to.
That was not a problem.
After all, the only people who knew that were herself and Baek Yuseol.
Even so, she could not help feeling uneasy.
Magic inevitably carried each mage’s own individuality and characteristics. Though both were fire types, Hong Biyeon’s flames were explosive, while Arshuang’s flames were refined.
Aizel’s magic was characterized by burgeoning vitality.
And astonishingly, Baek Yuseol had understood that characteristic perfectly and woven it into the thesis.
Still, there was no helping the fact that traces of Baek Yuseol’s scent remained deeply embedded in her magic.
What if—
what if someone were to detect not Aizel Morf in her thesis, but Baek Yuseol?
‘…That won’t happen.’
How much had Baek Yuseol agonized over it and helped her, in order to prevent that?
“Hup!”
She took a deep breath.
She forced herself to release the tension and looked toward the stage.
In one minute.
She would stand there and show her magic to everyone.
This was the place where, for the first time, she would be acknowledged not as the daughter of the traitorous Morf, but as Aizel.
She could not afford to ruin everything.
“Oh? Well, if it isn’t Aizel Morf. From that Morf family?”
Just as she was trying seriously to calm herself, someone spoke from behind.
“…Pardon? Who are you?”
She did not know him.
The young man with ash-gray hair and red eyes like a serpent wore the badge of Argonda Graduate Academy on his chest.
The fact that he was a student of the prestigious Argonda was eye-catching enough, but even more concerning than that was—
‘…The Dromian family?’
Dromian’s name in ice magic was too famous not to know.
Once, together with the Morf family, it had been one of the most powerful great houses recognized as authorities on ice magic.
But there was one decisive difference between Dromian and Morf.
Pure bloodline.
Every single member of the Morf family had been born with overwhelming talent for ice. That talent had only grown denser with each passing generation, and by Aizel’s generation, it had manifested to the extent that she herself had been born with the blessing of ice.
Dromian was different.
At first, their ice magic had rivaled Morf’s.
But with each generation, that bloodline of magic had grown weaker and weaker.
In the end, they secretly brought in talented ice mages through adoption, managing only barely to preserve their name.
How deep the inferiority complex Dromian must have held toward Morf—
that much was obvious as fire.
And then, the Morf family was annihilated.
…How do you suppose the Dromian family reacted?
The answer was obvious enough from the way the corners of the young man’s mouth curled upward.
‘You really were that happy.’
She had long known of the bad blood between Dromian and Morf, but facing it directly like this made Aizel feel all the more bitter.
“Pleasure to meet you, Aizel Morf. I’m Keika Dromian. As representatives of our respective houses, let’s both do our best.”
Then, as though he had just remembered something, Keika added:
“Ah… no, I suppose you’re not your family’s representative, are you? Still, as fellow ice mages, I suppose we’ll get to settle which of our magics is superior. When your family was exterminated, it was such a shame to lose my rival. But now the world will finally see which one of us is truly better.”
“…Yes.”
With that, Keika gave Aizel a light tap on the shoulder and walked past her.
And inwardly, he smiled.
‘What luck!’
There was no way Aizel’s magic—after years of living like a beggar on the street—could possibly surpass Dromian’s thesis, which had been built by gathering the knowledge of the greatest ice mages all in one place.
But to the world, none of that would matter.
People would compare them through only the simplest proposition.
Dromian’s magic was ultimately superior to Morf’s magic.
Ever since the annihilation of the Morf family, Keika had thought the humiliating title stuck to Dromian forever—the second authority in ice magic—would never be erased.
But today, if he could crush Morf beneath the name of Dromian…
‘Then the seat of family head won’t be far off at all!’
Keika’s smile grew deeper still.
—Read only on MugenCodex.—
