The Returnee Wants Peace

“Your Grace Duke Echerzen! How could you do this!”

As if coming to his senses after being dazed, Yurik pressed with a troubled expression.

“Did you secretly create a teleportation point here? If you hide an external passage in a completed formation…”

“I know the formation becomes imperfect, Professor. But it’s unavoidable to prepare for situations where important people get trapped in the formation. Like this case.”

A confident attitude as if he had created the passage for just such an occasion.

However, the boy, knowing that Rosha had not only not been trapped in the formation but had walked to its center in the shortest time, had an exasperated look.

That was only for a moment.

Thinking this approach wouldn’t work, he quickly countered with a different topic.

“Anyway, what are you going to do about the internal injuries you just sustained? It’s not something that will heal in a day.”

“…Internal injuries?”

Rosha quickly turned her head to look at Froy. At first glance, he only looked a bit pale but otherwise fine, so she wondered what he meant.

But soon she could tell.

His blood flow was so tangled that it was a wonder he was still standing.

-This is a space that has been painstakingly crafted to tangle space and time so that it’s absolutely impossible to break through in the middle. Even if someone did break through, they wouldn’t escape serious injury.

Yurik’s words from earlier flashed through her mind.

Cough, just then Froy coughed lightly, covering his mouth with his hand. Rosha quickly grabbed his hand.

Bright red blood on his palm.

He was coughing up blood.

“You… idiot!”

Seeing the blood on his palm, she felt dizzy for a moment.

At the same time, her mind went blank as if white paint had been poured over it. Her fingertips trembled and her insides boiled.

‘Am I angry?’

No, it wasn’t just anger. Even while calling him an idiot, she was closely examining his condition.

It was strange.

Until she saw Froy, she hadn’t been moved at all, but now her emotions were jumping around like this.

“…You’re finally looking at me. Maybe I should get hurt occasionally.”

“Is that something to say right now?”

As Rosha raised her eyebrows, the man coughed as if to say ‘look at this’. Even though his ploy was transparent, worry preceded anger.

Perhaps because of her complex expression, Froy glanced at her mood and apologized.

“I’m sorry. For this incident, and for not telling you about your old companion… Lately, I seem to keep doing things I need to apologize for to you.”

“Never mind that. Just sit down for now.”

There was no point in getting angry at a patient.

Rosha supported his arm and seated him on the high base of a pavilion pillar. But Froy wasn’t done speaking.

“A lot of mana was needed when creating the academy’s environment. Naturally, vast manar gathered in the air here, and unfortunately, that person popped out here at that time.”

“What?”

“There’s something you need to see.”

The man pointed at the splitting sky.

The unusually blue color and mysterious clouds split into large and small pieces, and behind them was a pitch-black space where nothingness flowed like fog.

And also the curtain of mana trying somehow to maintain the boundary between here and there.

Froy spoke to Yurik, who was struggling to salvage the disrupted formation.

“Professor, stop for a moment. We have to show her anyway.”

“But we need Her Majesty’s permission…”

“You might not know, Professor, but this was approved by Her Majesty even before overlaying the formation here. Even if that wasn’t the case, it can’t be salvaged without the original caster of the formation, so don’t waste your energy.”

Yurik, who had been glaring at the culprit of this situation, eventually lowered his hands.

The pieces of sky that had been trying to fit together scattered instantly and disappeared into the darkness. Confirming that the surroundings were darkening, Froy quietly muttered.

“I’ll borrow your magic for a moment.”

The meaning was immediately clear.

Demonic beasts that had been hidden by the formation suddenly burst out.

“What’s with this all of a sudden…”

The number was quite large, but originally, magicians are suitable for one-against-many situations. She could easily handle dozens of demonic beasts alone.

Whoosh!

Flames bloom in the darkness.

It was bright and hot fire, but in her hands, it could become anything.

As if kneading clay, Rosha stretched the flames long, skewering the demonic beasts and dropping them outside the garden while asking:

“Why are there demonic beasts in the academy? What’s here?”

“You’ll see when you look. I…”

Froy hesitated a bit, as if considering something.

But soon he parted his lips.

“I won’t say anything even if you leave. But if you don’t leave, I won’t let you go either.”

What on earth does this mean?

Just as she was about to ask what he meant, an unexpected sight entered her eyes.

There, where even the curtain of mana surrounding the garden had been lifted.

There was a massive rift that seemed endless.

Like the rift that had been in the basement of the Lycaon mansion before, creatures similar to the demonic beasts she had just dealt with were crawling out one by one here too.

Moreover, that rift.

‘That’s…’

As if looking into another world, the scenery of somewhere was reflected.

A concrete city, broken here and there, yet still inhabited by people.

Others might not know, but Rosha could recognize it.

It was Seoul, South Korea.

* * *

After that, time seemed to pass without a chance to feel it.

Returning in a daze, Rosha successfully completed the magic demonstration at the academy.

“Wow…”

“How could she think of using magic like that…”

Fire and ice swirl in the air.

Magicians who had reached a certain level could handle two elemental magics simultaneously, but it was difficult to harmoniously operate opposing elements.

However, the magic she demonstrated was different.

Whoosh-

Absurdly powerful wind pressure coordinates and maximizes the two elements.

Ice envelops the fire, and fire covers that, yet nothing diminishes.

Though wrapped in elements, the essence is ultimately mana, so they can pull each other up – this logic.

It was a level of enlightenment beyond .

“That wasn’t in the book…”

As she approached her companions, leaving behind the somehow solemn demonstration hall, Heres hurriedly asked:

“Lady Roshanak, where on earth did you go? You disappeared in the middle and we looked for you for a long time. Fortunately, you appeared at the demonstration hall in time, but surely you didn’t get lost in the academy…”

“I got lost.”

“What? Were you that bad with directions?”

Heres exaggeratedly surprised, then flinched. Then he lowered his voice and whispered:

“So did you… the Duke?”

“What?”

“No, I mean, Duke Echerzen isn’t the type to go around getting beaten up, but he came back injured, so I thought maybe it was you. He would take your punches without avoiding them… Oof!”

She lightly hit him for talking nonsense, meaning to snap him out of it.

Since Froy’s internal injuries were serious and she had sent him back first, it seemed all sorts of stories were coming out in his absence.

Even Nardil was glancing at her with curious eyes.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the state of mind to answer.

-Wasn’t the magic demonstration to call your old companion?

-How did you…

-I was suspicious from the moment you readily accepted Heres Lycaon’s proposal. Anyway, what I said earlier still stands. Think about it carefully.

Froy already knew Rosha’s scheme.

Moreover, since she wanted to find Hajin, he seemed to have calculated that if she learned of the existence of the massive rift, she might return to her previous world.

‘So that’s why he hid the existence of the rift and Hajin who came from there.’

Now his actions made sense.

At the same time, a laugh escaped her unknowingly.

“Haha…”

“Lady Roshanak?”

“It’s nothing.”

Rosha boarded the carriage returning after finishing her greetings with the academy headmistress.

The headmistress who had witnessed her demonstration was making an absurd misunderstanding, saying ‘Thank you for working hard for the development of magic with a body that hasn’t fully recovered yet.’

Yurik also seemed to have reconsidered her, though he still didn’t like her.

Regardless.

Rosha leaned back against the carriage seat, watching the academy’s main gate open.

‘As for Hajin… since he’s here anyway, let’s look for him slowly.’

Right now, she just wanted to see Froy.

She wanted to see him and scold him, saying ‘My family and you are here, how could I go anywhere abandoning everything?’ and ‘Why did you get internal injuries unnecessarily?’

Of course, Rosha hadn’t anticipated.

That she would meet Hajin right after leaving the academy gates.

“Let go of me, you jerk!”

A young man who suddenly appeared, nonchalantly holding the fluttering Koko in his hand, blocked the carriage’s path. Then he strode over and opened the door.

“Who are you?”

Nardil’s reaction of immediately drawing his sword was swift, but the young man paid no attention.

He just met her gaze with clear eyes.

A bright smile spread across his previously stiff face.

“Noona. You’ve finally woken up.”

It was a voice that had been sleeping in her memories.