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Chapter 54
She felt her body drop rapidly downward.
Rumble—
Rocks and trees came crashing past them — fragments falling as the ground collapsed.
Holding onto Krondel, Cillia leapt from one falling boulder to another, descending through the collapsing space. It seemed safer to go down for now and climb back up once things settled rather than struggle upward against the collapse. After stepping on a few more rocks, they quickly reached what should have been the bottom—
“…Can’t see a thing?”
They were still falling. At this height, with Krondel in her arms, using fall-mitigation magic was out of the question.
As she stared intensely downward, Krondel — pale-faced — spoke weakly.
“Don’t push yourself.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“No need to worry.”
Hadn’t he said something similar before?
Back in the treasure vault — when he’d shielded her from the attacking spirits.
And right after, he’d said those same words as he pulled her into his arms protectively.
Something glowed against Krondel’s chest — the tourmaline pendant from before.
“Don’t waste your limited magic uses on—”
Before she could finish, the light blazed bright.
A protective barrier burst forth, surrounding the two of them — and then they hit the ground. The impact thundered through them as rocks and trees crashed down on top of the barrier with deafening force.
Bang! Bang!
When the protective magic finally faded, Cillia slammed her fist upward. The massive rocks pinning them exploded outward instantly.
“That’s why I told you not to waste that spell here.”
“When else would I use it?”
Krondel still looked pale but managed a shaky smile. But something didn’t add up. If he had the pendant…
He shouldn’t be hurt or sick like this… oh.
It wasn’t an external injury — it was internal.
The enchantment only blocked external attacks or damage.
“Where does it hurt?”
“I’m… not sure.”
“Not sure?”
“Yeah. But as long as we’re not in a place overflowing with magic, I’ll be—”
His words cut off. Cillia immediately understood why — she felt it too.
“…Then this place is bad news.”
This unknown underground chamber was thick with uncontrollable magic energy.
“Yeah… troublesome—”
Before he could finish, Krondel suddenly collapsed. Cillia darted forward, catching his head before it hit the ground.
He was barely breathing, his body trembling violently — a state she’d seen once before, in the Guard Division’s underground prison.
Magic overload.
“Hold on.”
Cillia gripped his hand tightly.
Can I even do this?
She had never tried using control magic to suppress someone else’s mana surge before. It was said that if done wrong, it could kill the person instantly.
“…Ugh.”
Krondel’s condition was worsening fast — veins bulging, his face and hands flushed with pressure, his body on the verge of bursting. Anyone could see — he was dying.
“Damn it.”
Whether she did nothing or acted, the risk was death either way. But she couldn’t just watch him die in front of her. Whatever caused this — she had to try.
“You said you never even opened your mana circuit before — that you had no talent for magic.”
“I… did…”
As she opened her own circuit, she felt Krondel’s mana flow. Awkward, but gentle — a warm golden hue.
This feeling…
She’d felt it before — back at the Mage Tower.
“Ah…”
Krondel groaned painfully. Carefully, Cillia pushed a thread of her own mana into his circuit. Krondel’s circuit greedily sucked it in, devouring it without restraint. If she hadn’t had immense reserves, she might have fainted from the sudden drain.
“Is this even working?”
Then — a snag. Something in his circuit caught.
It’s tangled.
It felt deliberately twisted — as though someone had tied it in knots on purpose. Without thinking, Cillia pushed harder — something shifted violently inside. She froze.
“…Please tell me I didn’t break it.”
“Break what?”
“Just—hold still. You’re not dying, okay? You’re not dying.”
The wild draw on her mana stopped. Instead, unstable energy scattered through Krondel’s untangled circuit. Cillia quickly pulled the stray mana toward herself and suppressed it. Her own magic could overpower it.
Gradually, Krondel’s trembling subsided. His body relaxed, the chill leaving him as warmth returned. He whispered faintly:
“You did it.”
“Apparently. Don’t ask me how.”
“That’s… kind of scary. So I could’ve died, huh?”
“…But you didn’t, so it’s fine.”
“……”
“Come on, I just saved your life. What’s with that look?”
The tension began to ease now that the danger had passed. Cillia ruffled his hair roughly.
“So this is why you wanted to learn magic?”
“…Someone told me to. Said I had to learn — it was the only way to survive. I guess that stuck in my head like some kind of conditioning.”
His voice was weaker but steadier now. He gave a small, embarrassed smile.
“And lately… I’ve had this feeling that monsters would appear soon. I thought learning magic might help.”
Just going by intuition and still being right — that was impressive enough. Cillia sighed.
“Your guard once warned you not to mess with magic.”
“Yeah. I get why now. If something went wrong, I wouldn’t be the only one hurt.”
He wasn’t wrong. Cillia could feel it — even the faint mana she’d pushed into him had been ravenously absorbed, almost hostilely.
“Your mana circuit probably reacts too strongly to surrounding energy — absorbing until it bursts.”
She remembered rumors from the end of the war.
That some mages were born like that. And that a certain commander had used those mages as living bombs — flooding them with mana and sending them into monster hordes.
Whether true or not, it had sounded horrifying.
Later, when she joined the Mage Tower and studied circuits and magical constitutions, she’d learned more — it was an extremely rare condition.
Most don’t live past thirty, she recalled grimly — but didn’t say aloud.
“So that time you almost blew up the Mage Tower as a kid… that was because of this?”
“Yeah. After that, they sealed my circuit. It was fine for years.”
“But lately, it started acting up again.”
“The Jaykal mansion incident was close. I’m lucky to still be alive.”
“Lucky, he says.”
He smiled faintly. “I even snuck into the restricted archives to look it up… but nothing helped.”
So that’s what those archive records were, Cillia thought — all those entries under Ahaim must have included his.
“You could’ve just told me sooner.”
Cillia lightly flicked his forehead.
Now that she knew, his strange behavior finally made sense. And in some ways, his situation wasn’t so different from hers — both cursed by the power of magic itself.
“Magic’s hereditary through the mother’s side, right?”
“……”
“Haha, don’t tell me — you’re the Tower Lord’s secret bastard or something?”
She was half-joking, remembering Julin’s teasing words from when they first met.
But Krondel went silent — his expression unreadable.
“…Wait. You’re serious?”
He didn’t deny it — just gave a small nod.
Suddenly, everything clicked. His fixation on magic. His desperate plea to go to the Mage Tower. The way he’d acted during the Tower assault — so urgent, so personal.
Even their resemblance — how had she missed it before?
Cillia felt a mix of relief and pity. His life must have been anything but easy.
“I won’t pry. You can tell me when you’re ready—”
“She didn’t mean to have me,” he said quietly. “It was… an accident.”
He spoke so casually it almost startled her.
“I lived with my mother briefly as a child. After they sealed my circuit, we just… pretended not to know each other.”
“……”
“Thanks, though. For understanding.”
His sincerity caught her off guard, leaving her oddly drained.
So that’s why the pendant reacted that way, she realized.
When Krondel had denied her question, the pendant hadn’t glowed — because her question had been too broad: “Are you connected to the Mage Tower at all?”
If the pendant’s magic judged that he was lying — even indirectly — that explained everything.
Still, one question lingered.
“So… is that why you’re being targeted? If your mother’s the Tower Lord, that’s a pretty powerful connection.”
“Targeted?”
“The Crown Princess — she dragged you all the way out here. Sounds like political pressure to me.”
“Oh, that. No, this time’s a bit—”
Rumble.
A second collapse echoed from above the already-ruined ground. Cillia lowered her voice.
“Let’s move first.”
“Where to?”
Without answering, she stared into the darkness. The mana saturating this place was flowing from a single direction — she could feel it. And… something about it felt familiar.
The faint remains of brick along the ground caught her eye — old, weathered, man-made.
A passage.
Supporting Krondel, she followed it for several steps until a massive stone door appeared ahead. Krondel frowned.
“This one’s… too heavy for me to open—”
“Step aside.”
Before he could finish, Cillia pressed her palms against the stone and shoved. It opened effortlessly. Krondel muttered in awe.
“I keep forgetting how strong you are.”
“Forget something useful next time.”
But the instant the door swung wide, Cillia froze. Krondel looked at her, puzzled.
“What is it?”
“…I know this place.”
That strange sense of familiarity from before — it clicked.
She remembered now. This was the very place she’d seen in her memories — where Ilrod had once drunk from the Fountain of Magic.
