Magicapita

Serulia's mood had already lifted, walking beside Cæ as she smiled to herself, stealing glances at him. He occasionally reciprocated, shifting his impassive eyes to her every once in a while. The air between them remained silent but comforting. Her bouncy steps contrasted sharply with Cæ's composed, long gait, while their shoulders occasionally brushed.

"How was your day?" Serulia asked, out of the blue, trying to maintain a calm tone.

"Productive," Cæ replied with a calm tone. "I have achieved a lot today, which makes me satisfied with my progress and my rate of growth. I'm sure that I can reach my goals in the timeframe that I seek to."

She stared at him with an unamused expression. "Most people do not talk that way, you know?"

Cæ shrugged lightly, uncaring for the comparison. There was nothing that she could say that could make him self-conscious about himself, not after spending more than a year at this magicademy that made him stand out so much, not just because of his achievements, but also because of his age.

"Why are you so obsessed with productivity in the first place?" Serulia asked with a curious tone. "I know you need to work hard, but trying to squeeze each and every single minute and second of their value is just… not human. That is how automatons work. Do you not have any free time?"

"An hour every day," Cæ replied. "Miscellaneous scheduling. In fact, we are eating into it right now."

She gazed at him with a dubious gaze. "You even calculate how much time you spend on leisure?"

"What gets measured gets done," Cæ remarked. "The absence of clarity fosters complacency."

She heaved an exasperated sigh, shaking her head. "I have never met anyone like you. You are only twenty-five years old, and you do not have any dependents. You do not have any crippling debt… why are you working so hard?"

Cæ shifted his stoic eyes to Serulia knowingly. She was trying to learn more about him to compensate for her lack of understanding of him. The question was how much he was to cooperate and how much he was to let her in.

He obviously couldn't tell her that he wanted to burn the world down and build a better one.

She wouldn't believe him, which was almost as bad as if she did believe him. It would make him look like a distasteful liar or a narcissistic egomaniac with a god complex.

At the same time, he couldn't bring himself to flat-out lie, either. He didn't know whether it was because of the… fondness he had come to develop for Serulia or because of what Lilia told him in his dreams, or whether it was because he understood that they were in a sort of partnership and it was better not to spoil their relationship with a clear lie.

He heaved a deep breath, gazing at the sky. "I… want to change the world."

That was a much, much more palatable and even positive way of framing it.

Many people harbored a very similar goal to varying extents. A great desire to make the world a better place, to help people in some capacity or another, and to improve living conditions for everybody involved. It was hardly odd for a young man like himself to have a desire to change the world.

Of course, very few were driven by as much visceral hatred and anger as he had. Very few had the madness to actually commit to such a crazy vision, for they would be trying too much. Thus, Cæ could get away with telling people this and not being treated as a threat by those he intended to disenfranchise.

Like aristocratic families with immense, undue political power, like the Vritra Family. He wondered how she would feel about him if she found out what his intentions were.

She beamed at him with an expression of admiration. "You are truly wonderful for having such a goal."

"…Thanks," Cæ replied slowly. "It's not one that I have ever shared with anybody. It is… cliche and difficult for me to actually convey how I feel about it."

If he showed those emotions to others, they would look at him with horror at the monster of wrath that he hid deep within him, controlling with a steely composure, but one that threatened to jump out the moment he lost control.

"Are you… an activist or a volunteer of some sort?" She raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps the Equitist Movement?"

Cæ stirred at those words. It was the movement that Headmistress Lenolia was a part of, and one that she had attempted to paint favorably to him. She hadn't made any overt attempts to make him a member of her political movements, thankfully.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He shook his head. "I… don't have a high opinion on such movements, personally. I don't think lowly of people who dedicate their time and energy to these kinds of movements, but…"

He heaved a deep breath. "I've lived a life that is a testament to how futile such movements are. The people within them mean well and are certainly trying to do their best, but… I have never seen such things succeed. Ever."

It was one of the disagreements that he had with Lilia. She partook in such movements, joining protests, organizing movements, and canvassing for politicians who espoused the political ideology that she had believed in.

He always had great respect for her perseverance, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that it meant anything. No matter how much he tried, he simply could not associate the notion that these made any difference with truth.

In his eyes, these things were about as meaningless as praying to gods for help, although he was told that such supernatural entities existed.

He found it hard to believe even then.

"…I see," Serulia carefully replied, sensing that they were treading sensitive topics. She was extremely paranoid about hurting Cæ's feelings by saying something insensitive and ruining the shot that Cæ was giving her.

"…It must be a burden," she remarked as her eyes shifted back to his. "A burden to bear such a goal."

Cæ's expression softened.

"One that I wish I didn't have."

Alas, he didn't think he had any chance.

"I must say," she continued with a careful tone. "I do not think that I have ever seen somebody pursuing business who harbors a desire to change the world—"

She paused, "—not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. Just that it is an unusual combination."

The briefest of smiles cracked at the edge of Cæ's mouth for a moment. "You don't have to be that careful with what you say around me. I know that it is strange for someone to be as commercially minded as I am to have such a goal. But… I am pursuing my goal even when I do things like leveraging the value of my testimony for your justice to get a generous deal from your father; I am still taking a step toward my goal."

Power was everything.

The futile efforts of the powerless did not compare to even the gentlest of efforts from the powerful. Growing powerful was everything that he needed for his goal, and there was no such thing as too much power, as far as Cæ was concerned.

"I see…" Serulia's expression scrunched with a hint of confusion.

She clearly didn't understand how trying to amass more money for oneself could translate to progress in the process of changing the world, but she knew, even from the little time that she had known Cæ, that he wasn't your standard greedy businessman.

He didn't make an effort to try to squeeze money from her. He didn't even try to ingratiate her. It was she who had gotten close to him, and now it was she who was trying to get to know him better. Had he truly simply been about money, she couldn't imagine that he wouldn't immediately jump at her confession in a moment of passion.

Looking back, she felt so embarrassed by what she said that she wanted to bury herself alive every time she thought of it.

"We're here," Cæ gestured with a nod to the front gate of the campus. "We might as well get going to start with testimony training right away."

She nodded, accessing her magiphone, calling for her personal driver and newly-added security team. "You have not yet signed the agreement with my father, right?"

"Yeah, I sent it to a lawyer I trust in my company to look it over. Once he gives the green light, I will go ahead," Cæ remarked. "However, since your father and I have already agreed in spirit, I don't mind starting the testimony training right away."

"I am pleased to hear that. Ah, hear they come…" she pointed to a limousine surrounded by magicars in the front and back and bikes to the side.

"That was quick," Cæ murmured.

"They are always on standby just for me. Get in, it is a very short ride from here. My father chose a location close to the magicademy to minimize travel time and risk. There is nothing to worry about it."

Cæ nodded. It wasn't that he thought that the Vritra Family valued his safety itself, but that he held the key to ensuring that Serulia got justice. As long as that was true, they would not skimp on his safety.

He had to control himself as he spotted the logo of Elenel Motors.

It had been closer to a month since he found out about the identity of the people who killed Lilia, as far as he was concerned. Since then, he began seeing her in his dreams more and more often, signifying even to him that he had some extraordinarily deep trauma that he had yet to resolve.

Yet, he had gotten slightly better at controlling his anger and grief.

His expression tightened, but didn't change.

His hands balled into a fist for just a moment before slackening.

And yet, despite just the moment of anger, Serulia noticed.

"Hey…" she gazed at him with a hint of concern in her light blue eyes. "Are you okay?"

"…Fine. Let's get going."

The ride there was silent the entire way, not because Cæ was too serious to make small talk, but because she hadn't lied when she said that the location was very close to the magicademy.

The ride had barely lasted five minutes before they arrived at a business complex comprising an array of classy skyscrapers, each checkered with magical runes and circles. The entire estate had a modern vibe to it, contrasting sharply with the estates of old or familial wealth that inherited a more traditional vibe.

The firm's name was plastered in large bold letters at the very front.

[Morspen Legal Services]

"This…" Cæ sharpened his eyes as he stepped out of the door, a chauffeur opening and closing the door behind him.

"My father hired this firm to serve as our legal counsel," Serulia informed him with a confident smile. "They are the second-best law firm in the entire city, I'm told."

"…Right."

Cæ already knew who the best were. He had fought against them in the recent past, even if it felt like forever.

Although the Nelnmonts had lost a lot of face when they withdrew from the civil lawsuit that they put on Headmistress Lenolia as stakeholders of the Elendir Institute of Magic, they were still the most powerful legal force in the city.

"Father trusts the Morspen Legal Services more because they are not controlled by the old affluent community of Elendir, but rather a more modern sort of 'bourgeois,' for lack of a better term," she replied. "He purchased a five-percent stake in it yesterday for a price far above market value so that he could get some control over it and ensure that their interests aligned."

"…Your father really loves you, doesn't he?"

"He is a good father indeed."