Hylli frowned as he spoke. Swanhaden pouted as he listened to Hylli speak, visibly annoyed, before he looked away and locked eyes with me. Swanhaden was so surprised that his chin slipped off of his hand.
For a third party, it kind of looked like he had nodded.
"…..truly! Thank you."
"Huh?"
"I want to try anything that I can. Even if it's hopeless."
Hylli, for the first time in a very long time, looked elated. The shadows on his face dissipated in a moment.
Swanhaden had accidentally accepted his request, so he scowled as he tried to say something to Hylli before glancing at me.
Swan ruffled his hair roughly as he looked towards Hylli to speak.
"It's okay. Of course I should help. Friends help each other."
Swanhaden's entire face contorted in annoyance while his words were filled with understanding. He added a "Hahaha" at the end of his phrase, but it sounded like he was reading out of a textbook.
Hylli frowned at Swanhaden's sudden attitude change. It looked like he had goosebumps–he was scratching at his arms.
"So when are we going?"
I joined the conversation like I had been there all along.
Hylli was looking at Swanhaden with suspicion and looked completely taken aback when I popped in out of nowhere. Hylli, surprised, unknowingly put his hand on Swanhaden's desk to catch his balance. Hylli's hand was about to touch a weird orange furball that Swanhaden had been drawing, so Swan hurriedly pulled the drawing towards himself.
I began to speak towards Hylli, who still looked too surprised to speak.
"It sounds like something happened. As a friend, I should definitely help, right?"
"...do you know of my situation?"
"Yes. A bit."
Even if I didn't actually know anything.
He wouldn't let me join if I didn't know, so I lied a little bit. Well, no. It wasn't really much of a lie either. I didn't tell him how much 'a bit' was. I knew a bit about his current state and how abnormal it was. I didn't lie. I'm confident.
"It would be nice to have a normal magic user…."
Hylli seemed to think deeply for a moment before sighing. He thanked me for wanting to help.
And like that, Hylli, who had somehow ended up getting Swanhaden's and my help, looked half hopeful, half resigned, with a smidgen of despair.
Hylli requested for us to get a leave request and for us to follow him, then slowly meandered back to the green class.
I was also getting ready to leave because class was going to start soon. But when I turned around to leave, Swanhaden called me.
"Here, take this."
"…..?"
"I drew it because I was bored. This is you."
Swan handed me a folded piece of paper and then pulled his sleeping mask back onto his eyes to fall asleep. The blue class students who had left class were soon coming back and it looked like the teacher would be coming in soon, so I just took the piece of paper and got out of the class.
I opened up the piece of paper that I had gotten once I was back in my class.
Unlike the orange furball picture from earlier, this drawing had a bit more effort.
This was supposed to be me?
There was a drawing of a person that didn't really look human. The ratios were all wrong, and the eyes were a bit too sparkly and the mouth of the person was basically stretched from ear to ear. On the other hand, the nostrils were too realistic that they were terrifying. He must've had a difficult time drawing the nose–it looked like he had erased it and redrawn it multiple times.
I couldn't really tell by the drawing itself, but for some strange reason, he had put in an immense amount of effort into coloring. He had even put an orange gradient and shadows into the hair. Swan had drawn a bunch of planktons and daggers around me. Wait, no. Were they supposed to be stars and flowers? I didn't really get it.
"Is he trying to pick a fight?"
I stared at the abstract drawing in front of me as I muttered to myself. I drew a tiny picture of an ugly Swan as revenge, then headed over to the blue class when classes ended and handed it to Swan.
On my way back, I made a short detour to the green class and drew a handsome Hylli and handed it to him. When he burst into quiet laughter for the first time in a while, I drew him a few more. Cory asked me to draw him from my side. I decided to draw a fruit basket instead.
After we got approved to leave, Hylli, Swan, and I took a carriage to head over to the royal palace after school. The royal palace and the academy were incredibly close, so we only had to wait about ten minutes. The streets around the palace were supposed to be well-kept, but for some reason, the ride was bumpy and shook a lot. But it was short, so I could bear it. I regretted flat out refusing to take the unhose.
The unhose moved with magic instead of wheels, so the carriage floated gently as it moved. It was a very smooth way to travel. But it was a short trip, so I thought it would be a waste of money to spend more money for the unhose and I had stopped Swan and Hylli from spending more. I had been stupid. I should have just let them pay.
But when I got used to it, the bumpiness began to become fun. I looked through the window to see the horses' legs ripple with muscle. I could hear the rhythmic clip clops of the horses.
When I stared at the horses and looked up, I began to see the royal palace. As expected of the residence of the royal emperor, the palace was grand and beautiful. Our empire loved the color black, so most of the palace was painted black. Because of that, it looked beautiful yet ominous.
For most people, black would be an ominous color. But our empire really loved the color black. I think it might be because members of the royal family always seem to have black hair or black eyes.
My maternal grandmother had been a princess who had married a duke. She had black eyes, and Harun had inherited those black eyes from her.
Harun always received preferential treatment because of his black eyes. Black was that much of a preferred color here. Based on the 'Orde Empire Founding Myth' that we learned about in our empire history class, the emperor who had founded our empire had been a dragon slayer. He had used a black dragon's heart to gain the power to found our empire. Of course, we believed dragons to be a fictional creature and thought the founding myth was just a myth as well. Anyway, because our country was based on the powers of the black dragon, black was considered a good color.
Now that we were close enough to the palace, I could see our empire's flag. I could also see the handsome dragon on our flag. The carriage stopped when we reached our destination and we got off. It looked like Hylli personally knew the carriage driver.
Hylli tossed a gold coin to the driver and waved. The driver saluted and turned the carriage back. If he was just going to pay with the gold coin and not take any change, we should've just taken the damn unhose.
Anyway, when we got off of the carriage, it seemed that we had arrived at the back of the palace. It was kind of creepy. It looked like we had taken a secret detour instead of the big streets leading to the palace.
Hylli didn't enter through the front door, and, instead, stayed at the back of the palace. He seemed to be looking for something. He touched the palace walls as he walked slowly. He frowned as he peered closely at the walls before smiling and pressing some kind of switch on the black wall of the palace.
– Gu gu gu gung!
From a short distance away, I could hear the sound of a door opening. Hylli walked towards the sound as if he had done this hundreds of times.
When I followed him closer, I could see a part of the wall that was covered in vines. Hylli shifted the vines carefully before shoving the wall.
There was a hidden door behind the vines. The sound that we had heard earlier had to be the sound of this door unlocking. Hylli dusted off his hands and told Swan and I to come in.
Hylli tried to light the candles lining the walls, so I just used light magic.
"….magic truly makes life easier. Thank you."
Hylli said as he nodded.
As the light made it easier to see, I could slowly see my surroundings and how it looked. We had gotten into the palace through a secret door, but there was only another room through that door. Moreover, this room was extremely small and completely empty.
Well, excluding the magic circle in the middle of the room.
"Subspace magic….?"
I swallowed as I stared at the large magic circle in the middle of the room. The bigger the circle, the bigger the scale and output of the magic. I couldn't even begin to imagine the amount of power that this giant circle held. Oh. I could imagine one particular use.
We stood on top of the circle. Hylli took out a special liquid and spilled it on top of the circle. The circle absorbed it and began to glow brightly.
Magic liquids were basically liquidized magic, and were easier to absorb than magic stones. Magic stones had a tendency to lose some magic during use, but liquids allowed users to use all of the magic within it.
When the light began to take over our sight, I felt the ground beneath me disappear.
When I opened my eyes, we were standing in a cozy room.
It wasn't overly grand, but the wooden furniture in the room were all well built and sturdy, and the carpet on the floor was incredibly soft. There was a window, but I had a feeling that the view from it was incredibly fake. It was supposed to rain today and the weather was gloomy and gray, but the window showed a bright, sunny day.
I could see a middle-aged woman staring out the window. She was incredibly beautiful, with light brown hair and panicked, shaky red eyes peeking through her bangs.
She grabbed at her light brown hair as if she was trying to rip it out, and her legs were shaking. Her white clothes had blood stains centered at her stomach and throughout her clothes.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaagh! Heuagh, hagh, aaaaaaaaagh!"
Saliva dripped down her mouth as she screamed. She had scratched at her skin and ripped at it so much that her fingernails were worn down.
"Who is it! Get out! Go away!"
She had begun to throw everything around her, but there was nothing that could be used as a weapon in the room. The only things that flew around the room were pillows.
I bit my lips in an attempt to not look surprised, and casually avoided the items being thrown my way.
Hylli removed his uniform jacket and put it on the hanger before carefully walking towards the woman. He was extremely careful.
Hylli hesitated for a moment and swiped his hand across his face. With an expression that was moment away from crying, he began to speak.
"Mother, have you eaten yet?"
"Aaaaaaaaaagh! Black, black hair! You cursed demon! Die! Die! Die!"
The woman seemed to have extremely negative emotions towards Hylli. Hylli had just called the woman 'mother'. I stared at him because I thought he had said something wrong. Hylli smiled like his world was crumbling down.
"Someone rip him to shreds! Someone kill him! I hate you! Someone kill him already!"