Fallen Mage Regressor

A perfect shield. The mana from the arcane sphere rebounded backward.

Unfortunately, Nima was just outside of the range of the mana recoil. He flinched back, arms raised instinctively

Mal ran through the bright lights of the mana and reared his fist back for a punch, despite being several feet away. Nima’s eyes widened and he took several steps back. Mana was flowed into his body for another cast.

Mal leaned down to the ground while running and picked up a scoop full of dirt, then threw it straight into Nima’s face.

”My eyes!” Nima screeched

The mana flowed stopped and Nima staggered backward from the runic backlash. Mal took advantage of the distraction and followed through with his punch, landing one square on Nima’s jaw.

Nima went down like a bag of potatoes.

Mal stared at his body and then slowly realized that he’d gone way, way too hard.

”Oops.”

For whatever reason, Mal had registered Nima as a natural enemy. That was why he’d fought so hard. Mal’s instincts had told him that Nima wasn’t someone to be trifled with.

A flicker of silver on Nima’s neck caught Mal’s attention.

A chain?

When Nima had fallen, whatever was attached at the bottom of the necklace had ridden up to the nape of Nima’s neck. The top quarter of the charm was a dark purple-black.

Mal narrowed his eyes.

Mal kneeled down and reached out for the necklace. Just the slightest movement, and he’d be able to confirm or deny his fear.

Nima’s eyes shot open.

Mal drew his hand back.

”You okay?” he asked.

Nima reached up and rubbed his cheek. ”Not really. You hit like a brick.”

”Thank you.” Mal held out his hand. ”Come on, let’s get you up.”

Nima took his hand and Mal pulled Nima to his feet. Nima dusted himself off and laughed.

”Thanks for the fight,” he said. ”Though I consider it more of a massacre, myself.”

Mal didn’t respond.

”Mal?” Nima asked. ”Something wrong?”

Mal looked away from the necklace chain and back toward Nima’s face. ”Nothing. Nothing at all.”

”Malfrasius Patoal.” The woman at the receptionist’s counter nodded. ”She’s been expecting you. Please follow me.”

It’d been a few days since the spar and things had gone back to normal. Hypode hadn’t gone out to meet his mysterious senior student friend, and neither had the senior student.

Of course, Mal couldn’t exactly keep a close eye on them at all times—they might’ve been sneaking away during classes that Mal wasn’t in. But at least during lunch and recreation hours, Mal had been keeping a close eye on them. His circle mates were a little bit confused as to why he was constantly away, but they didn’t ask too many questions.

Still, Mal had made no progress. Which was why, much to his chagrin, he had to organize a meeting with someone who might be able to help him push forward on his investigation.

The person he was going to speak to had requested that the meeting take place off campus.

She preferred her privacy, and as such a well-known figure on campus, she was constantly trailed by admirers. Admirers who would be very confused as to why she was meeting with someone like Mal.

The receptionist brought Mal through the hallway carved into the side of the cliffs. The hallway had arches on the side to allow Mal to look out toward the entire city from up above. The sea sparkled like diamonds in the distance, the red tiled roofs of the city contrasting with the ocean.

They came to a stop in front of a door. The receptionist stepped to the side of it and bowed.

”Please enjoy,” she said.

The door swung open on its own, revealing a garden pavilion with several white tables and empty chairs. Each of the tables had an umbrella on the top, casting the nonexistent inhabitants below them into shade. The cliffside had been replaced with gleaming white brick going up for hundreds of feet before it melded seamlessly back into the stone. In the center of the pavilion, a lone woman with braided blonde hair and blue eyes sat. She sipped on a cup of tea and set it back onto the plate on the table.

Mal walked over to the table and took the opposite side. A chair had already been set out for him.

They had the best view in the pavilion. From here, they could see Exodi City in all its glory. Every red peak, every small hill, every platform moving from place to place, every airship moving from dock to dock and back out West.

”You know,” Mal said. ”I get the point. You’re really, really rich. You didn’t have to tell me.”

Savaly looked over at him for the first time since he entered the room. ”You know where this is, then?”

”No idea. But I get the message that it’s meant to send.”

Savaly leaned back in her chair, her hands folded in her lap in perfect posture.

”The Valley Lily Club is a popular place for the top 1% to meet,” she said. ”Not just them, but all across the world. It’s said that the king himself will fly out here just to hold meetings with delegations from other countries.”

”Is it true?” Mal asked.

”Of course not. But it’s an amusing story, isn’t it?”

The only thing Mal knew about this place was that he’d probably blown it up back when he was sieging the city. He didn’t exactly have time for fancy hoity-toity social engagements.

”It’s super exclusive and you managed to reserve the entire place for a meeting with a student,” Mal said. ”Very cool.”

”You’re not impressed?” She pouted and looked away demurely. ”And after I went to such effort.”

Mal rolled his eyes. ”I think I would’ve rather just exchanged letters, if you were going to be like this.”

She laughed into her hand, then took it away. Her smile felt painted on. Whatever she was actually thinking or feeling was completely foreign to Mal.

”How interesting...”

”What do you mean?”

”For the son of a duke, you really don’t seem to have the slightest understanding of the sorts of social rules that govern our class. Not even the bare basics. If you had spoken to me like that in front of your peers, it very well could have resulted in your expulsion—or at the very least, a severe reprimanding by the school.”

Her eyes twinkled.

Mal looked down at the tea and took a sip. He set it back onto the plate with a loud clang.

”Is that a threat?” he said.

”Of course not,” she said. ”It’s merely an observation on my part. I knew you were strange. Our first meeting told me so. That was the reason why I agreed to this.”

”Right. So —” Mal looked her in the eyes. ”I need information.”

Her eyes shut and she took another sip of her tea. ”On who?”

”Three people. Nima, Hypode, and Norin. A commoner. Talented.”

She hummed and looked off into the distance.

”Yes, I can help you with that,” she said. ”What do you want to know?”

”For Hypode and Norin, can you imagine any way in which they could’ve somehow been acquainted? Or some kind of place they could’ve met—any reason for them to be associated with each other?”

”And what about your circlemate, Nima?”

”His background. Anything about him.”

Savaly stared at him, her blue eyes closed and shuttered in a way that made them impossible to read.

”I can already tell you right now that Hypode and Norin have had no association beyond, perhaps, occasionally seeing each other at the central hall. There’s zero conventional reason why the two of them would ever meet. A commoner and a noble? Absurd.”

”That... damn.”

Mal wasn’t quite sure what he’d been hoping for. But any answer other than that would’ve been preferable. Without any kind of solid information, it felt more and more likely that the nature of how they met was illicit. They really were members of the same cult, and had been assigned to work together for whatever reason.

”And what about Nima?” Mal asked.

”His background is rather uninteresting, all things considered,” she said. ”He’s the son of a count. Early on, his potential for magic was discovered. As was the norm, he was taught how to rule over his future domain, with magic put off to the side due to his immature core. The only odd part is the passing of his younger brother.”

”His younger brother died?”

”Yes, that’s what I said. Do try to keep up.”

Mal glared at her. She laughed into her hand.

”Yes,” she said. ”But that’s not really the interesting part. People die all the time, after all. No, what’s odd are the circumstances. You see, his younger brother died of a perfectly curable disease. The problem was that the only plant that had the ingredient necessary to cure it was a part of the royal gardens. Rare and endangered, it was being conserved by the king in order to prevent its species from dying out. In order for the boy to be saved, the plant would’ve had to die.”

”And the royal family wasn’t willing to give it up,” Mal said.

”Exactly. The count petitioned my father repeatedly, but all of his pleas were shut down.” She shrugged. ”The argument was that if that plant died out, anyone who had that same disease in the future would be guaranteed to die. He chose between the many and the one, and the former was the victor.”

Mal kept his expression neutral as he weighed the information in his mind.

That was all the motive someone would need to turn against the kingdom, he supposed. The death of a loved one via the direct inaction of the ruling sovereign. If Mal were in his shoes, he might’ve gone crazy and tried to join the Bird Eaters as well.

But on the other hand, if Nima really was a scheming mastermind capable of infiltrating a magic academy and then being a direct contributor to the death of Professor Vigil, Mal thought he would’ve heard about the guy at some point in the original timeline. Unless he was just that good of a spy? Mal supposed that this was their entire goal, after all, to remain hidden from anybody who would seek to do them harm.

Maybe Nima was simply going through a rough time. There was no guarantee that guy was secretly a member of the Bird Eaters.

”Is there anything suspicious about him?” Mal asked. ”His activities? Where he goes off campus?”

”I’m afraid that the trail ends there,” she said. ”I assigned somebody to find out about it when I heard the rumors. A student disappearing entirely from campus is a little bit strange. Despite that, he always managed to shake my tails. Whatever he’s doing, I don’t have the faintest clue.”

Mal nodded at her and stood up. ”That’s pretty much everything. Thanks for helping —”

”And where do you think you’re going?”

Mal stiffened.

Her eyes flashed with a steely sharpness that made even Mal uncomfortable.

”You should sit back down,” she said.

Mal, after a second of hesitation, returned to his seat.

She smiled, the motion cold and dead.

”Did you really think that you could borrow my information without some sort of repayment?”

Mal’s teeth slammed together inside of his mouth.

He’d completely screwed up. He should’ve made the deal beforehand. Now, she was free to set the terms after the fact.

”What do you want?”

She folded her hands together and rested her chin on them. ”It’s nothing so intrusive—don’t have such a dirty expression on your face. It’s not like I’m going to put you into slavery or something.”

”I should hope so, given that slavery was outlawed 300 years ago.”

”Indeed. And besides that, even I’m not so cruel as to make you do anything too unreasonable, given that we didn’t agree to anything beforehand.”

”So what do you want?”

Her grin widened. ”One.”

Mal leaned back into his seat, trying to get as far away from this woman as he could. ”What do you mean, ’one’?”

”I want one favor.” She held out her hand and raised an index finger to the sky. ”Exactly one.”

He gave a strained smile.

”You know that I don’t really have a lot of connections,” he said. ”My magic is weak—I’m an F-rank core, after all.”

She waved him off. ”You and I both know that core rankings matter far less than people think they do. And I don’t need you for connections—I have plenty of those.”

”You do realize that sounds ridiculous, right? Coming from an S-rank core like you.”

”And yet you came second in the practical exam. Despite the gap between us being like the gap between heaven and earth, you almost managed to touch the sky.” She giggled into her hand. The noise felt completely out of place given her attitude thus far. ”I must admit, when I found out the true extent of your abilities, I felt a little bit of a thrill. I’d been fully expecting someone utterly dull to take second place. Another noble who’d received court etiquette training since before they could walk, magic training as soon as their core was capable—those sorts of things. Instead, it was a boy with an F-grade core, who scored dead middle in the written exam.”

”How do you even know that? Isn’t that off-limits to students?”

”I’m the second princess of Chama,” she said. ”If I want something, I gain it.”

The words were arrogant, but for some reason, Mal felt that it was the absolute truth. Not just because of her royalty, but the way she carried herself. The mere fact that she managed to arrange this meeting in the place that she did proved that she wasn’t all talk.

And that was ignoring the fact that he’d fought against her on the grand field of war. She’d more than shown her competence under those circumstances.

”Yes,” her eyes unfocused, like she was staring at something behind Mal. ”You’ll make for an excellent rival.”

Mal jolted back in his chair. ”Wait, what did you say?”

Her eyes snapped back into focus and her expression changed into that enigmatic smile. ”Doesn’t it make sense? You and I are complete opposites. The princess who received everything on a gold platter, and the heir to a dead house who managed to match her. It’s like something out of a storybook.” She let out a theatrical sigh. ”Ah, it’s so romantic!”

Mal narrowed his eyes. ”Now I know you’re screwing with me.”

Her lips twitched upward. ”Believe what you will. Now then, is there anything else?”

”No. I think I’ll be taking my leave.”

He stood up from the table and walked away.

”Good luck, my rival,” she said. ”I suspect you’re going to need it.”

He stepped out and the door shut behind him.