Gloria had been listening intently to Elvin's story. When she heard this name, she couldn't help but be startled and then looked at Aurelio in astonishment. "You said... Mr. de Leto? My goodness!"
Elvin was also stunned for a moment before answering, "Yes, that's the name. Is Tulio... very famous?"
"Mr. de Leto... was my teacher."
"Really?" Elvin looked the young man up and down, a look of surprise on his face. "No wonder! So you're his apprentice! No wonder! Your expressions are so similar, almost identical! How is your teacher? Is he in good health?" Facing the disciple of his friend, the weather-beaten old man's voice trembled with excitement.
He looked at Aurelio expectantly, but received no answer for a long time. Seeing that Aurelio remained silent and had a dull look in his eyes, he turned to the female knight beside him. Only then did he notice that the once-active female knight had now lowered her head, her eyes full of sorrow.
He had already guessed the general situation and said in a low voice, "He's no longer with us, right?" There was a tinge of desolation in his words. But he still held onto hope, staring at the young man in front of him, hoping to get a negative answer from him.
After a long while, Aurelio finally spoke. He didn't bring any good news to Elvin. Instead, he uttered aloud the reality that he had been unwilling to accept for ten years and had repeatedly denied in his heart: "Ten years ago, he disappeared during the battle with Westrick. Seven years ago, he was declared dead. Probably... that is, he's already dead."
His chest ached painfully, as if pierced by a sharp sword. He endured the heartache and spoke the whole sentence in an extremely calm tone. At the end of his speech, he added a strange smile - which was truly eerie.
"Sorry." Elvin let out a long sigh.
"Teacher... always cherished your arquebus. He always kept it in a similar cabinet."
"Is that so..." Elvin sighed again. The fact that his friend cherished it so much only made him feel sadder.
"My teacher, when he was alive, was... a great man." Aurelio said, and the deeds of his teacher, those he had witnessed and heard about, came to his mind again.
Tulio de Leto was a gifted magician. He came from a commoner family and didn't enter the academy until he was twenty, which was more than ten years later than other students. For ordinary people, starting to learn magic at the age of twenty without any foundation was already too late. But for such a genius, it was not the case.
Two or three years later, he had caught up with his peers. After about eight more years, he had just turned thirty. But in terms of magical attainment, only a few older archmages could compare with him. By the time he was thirty-five, no human mage on the entire continent could rival him.
To commemorate his achievements on the battlefield and in magical research, the academy erected a statue of him while he was still alive. That marble statue, along with those of ten other sages, sat around the fountain in the center of the academy square.
The people of the country regarded him as a hero, and children adored him. In the maritime country of Serencia, which was founded on commerce, children's ambitions usually were to become a captain or a wealthy merchant. But because of this archmage, for a while, countless children changed their ambitions. When playing on the street, the number of children holding a branch to pretend to be a magician actually exceeded those pretending to be sailors.
"But he's... no longer here. And I haven't even learned one-tenth of my teacher's skills." Thinking of this, Aurelio felt even more sour in his heart. He raised his voice and said loudly, "But these are all things of the past. It's been ten years. It doesn't matter anymore!"
Gloria looked up and witnessed that stiff smile on his face again.
After that, no one spoke again. The expression on Aurelio's face disappeared completely once again. He neither looked mournful nor relieved. After eating the stew, he lay down early on the floor mat. He pulled the tattered cloth that served as a quilt up to his neck and then closed his eyes.
In a daze, he heard a call: "Aurelio! I'm back!"
"Teacher? Teacher!"
When he was eager to present the results of his countless hours of hard practice to his teacher, Aurelio suddenly woke up. He had long given up counting how many times this had happened during the night. He had envisioned countless possible scenarios of the teacher's triumphant return with the army in his dreams. But all of these were fictional. Only General Corne's "Sorry" that day and the light pat on his shoulder were the cold reality.
It was as if it had all happened yesterday.
"But it's been ten years. Can't I wake up from this nightmare?" Aurelio asked himself in his heart.
He forced himself to close his eyes again and soon fell into an illusory dream. He quickly woke himself up, then lay on the floor mat, took a deep breath. He used this to soothe his twitching heart. When his heartbeat slowed down a bit, he stopped struggling. He sat up directly, while silently chanting a spell and lighting a flame on his fingertip. He took out his pocket watch and confirmed the current time. It was just one o'clock. There was still a long way to go before dawn.
He stood up, carefully walked around the female knight's sleeping place. He used the flickering flame to light his way, avoiding the dining table in the middle of the house, and walked towards the glass display cabinet. When he stood in front of the display cabinet, he found the cabinet door open. The thing he wanted to see was not there anymore - only an arquebus was left inside. At that moment, he heard a heavy sigh from the next room. Only then did he know that he wasn't the only one who wanted to see something to remember the person by.
He shook his head gently and felt the heaviness of the air. He had never been afraid of the dark. Even when he was young, at an age when children were usually afraid of the dark, he dared to face it alone. But in this small wooden house, the thin layer of darkness was as heavy as steel. The flame on his fingertip, which he relied on to light up, seemed unable to penetrate it.
The darkness seemed to be choking his throat. He felt suffocated. Unable to endure this oppression any longer, he pushed open the door and went outside. Outside, there were countless stars in the sky. But the faint light from the stars couldn't make up for the absence of the sun. It was also dark outside, an even thicker darkness.
He closed the door gently and at the same time heard a soft sigh a few steps away. Looking in the direction of the sound, he saw a blurry figure in the faint starlight. After adapting to the dim environment and walking closer, he recognized that the figure was none other than the female knight Gloria.
She was looking up at the starry sky. Hearing the footsteps, she turned around. It was too dark outside for her to see the face of the person coming, but just by the blurry shape, she guessed who it was. "What are you doing here? Can't you sleep?" She said, then looked up at the sky again.
Aurelio didn't answer. He just stared at the female knight. Her skin was fair, and under the starlight, it was almost indistinguishable from her white silk nightgown. The only things that could be distinguished were her long, straight, dark green hair that fell to her waist and her big eyes that reflected the starlight and blinked with a sparkle.
Gloria didn't get a response, so she turned back to her companion and stared at his face. After turning back, her eyes no longer gazed at the stars, and the light in her eyes no longer shone.
"Can't you sleep either?"