Noble Lady Reformation Guide - Chapter 163: Who are you a disciple of? (3)

In Fina’s long and exhausting life, there was a time—perhaps the last—when something like life still shone in her eyes.

It was the period after Kalimford’s death.

The time when, grinding her teeth at the man who failed to keep his promise, she devoted countless years to researching advanced corpse resurrection.

Those efforts to reach the rest of death, to put an end to that life once and for all, were—at least to her—the only thing she could consider “valuable.”

However, Kalimford’s confession, which crushed all of that effort as if it meant nothing, forced Fina to blink again and again.

“How… how could you do this to me…?”

“I have no excuse. Even if I had a thousand mouths, there would not be enough words. I…”

“Do you have even the slightest idea of what you did while you were peacefully dead? I… I trusted the promise you made to me without a shred of doubt… do you know how many centuries I sacrificed for that?”

Fina clenched her teeth hard and grabbed Kalimford by the neck.

The body that could barely remain upright on the experimental table was dragged forward, and blood began to spill from his throat.

When Fina brought her face close, hatred and resentment burned in her eyes.

“You were a hero of humanity. A man who never scorned a promise, not even one made to a child found on the street. You swore to live doing what was right under the heavens. And yet… how could you do this to me…?”

“I already told you… I had no other choice either. To obtain the help of someone like you, who looks down upon the world and distrusts everyone… there was no other way. If I hadn’t had your power… the damage would have been far greater…”

“Shut up! I don’t care about that! Damn you…! Damn you…!”

Smack!

Crunch!

Kalimford’s body, newly resurrected and weak to the extreme, was sent flying by Fina’s kick.

He coughed violently, trying to prop himself up on the floor, but his body would not respond.

Fina kicked him in the chest again and, concentrating mana, released a shockwave that hurled him into the wall.

Kalimford slammed into it, rolled across the floor once more, and unbearable pain shot through his chest as his bones shifted.

Blood began to spill from his mouth.

Even so, amid the pain, Kalimford managed to slowly get back up.

“Your anger… is justified… Fina… cough… cough… I’m sorry… I have nothing else to say…”

“What are you talking about with that look of superiority?”

“Vent it all… as much as you want… it’s your right…”

“Ha… right, the noble hero has spoken. Do you think I’m incapable?”

From Fina’s hand sprouted a blade of mana.

Like a sword formed from rose vines, it pierced Kalimford’s shoulder, was withdrawn, and then cut into him again and again.

Blood splattered onto the hem of her dress.

A red line crossed Fina’s face.

Kalimford screamed in pain.

Blood continued to gush out.

Fina kicked him, crushed him, immobilized him with mana, engraving pain into every part of his body.

Blood covered the floor.

Kalimford’s body was left utterly broken.

“Haah… haah…”

After a long bout of brutal violence, Fina stopped to catch her breath.

In the blood-soaked underground laboratory, only the body of the former archmage remained, breathing with difficulty.

But no matter how much she destroyed his body, her rage and sorrow found no solace.

Everything was futile.

The chains of life still wrapped around her limbs.

“Fina…”

Kalimford, covered in blood and on the verge of death, spoke in a barely audible voice.

“What more are you going to say now?”

“I have no right to ask this… it’s selfish and pathetic, I know, but…”

The legendary archmage, with his withered body, gathered his strength to speak.

“Let me… live… at least my life…”

Upon hearing those words, Fina’s eyes widened.

After all this, he was begging for his life?

The hero who sacrificed himself before Noir, who saved the world with honor, was now pleading for his life, beaten in the corner of an underground laboratory?

“You can… kill me… that’s fine… but…”

A tear ran down Kalimford’s bloodstained face.

“I want to see Siern… even if only once…”

***

The words stuck in Fina’s throat.

His only daughter.

The child he had left in the care of his friend Melverot when he departed.

The daughter he could not protect while saving the world.

He wanted to see her one more time.

Just once.

That was the final wish of the archmage who had abandoned everything.

Parental love.

Love for one’s child is like that.

Humans, finite beings, love their children desperately because they know that one day they will disappear.

Death, as an inevitable rest, drives them to protect what they will leave behind.

That was something that would never be granted to Fina.

Hearing that plea, an inescapable truth was carved once more into her heart: Kalimford belonged to a different world than hers.

He possessed the nobility of humans who struggle within their finitude.

She, on the other hand, had spent centuries fighting without even being able to reach death.

Even though he had been resurrected, his essence had not changed.

Clang!

The sword fell from Fina’s hand and rolled across the floor.

She understood then that the chains of life would never release her.

“Haah… haah… ugh…”

Vomit rose in her throat, but did not come out.

Fina kicked Kalimford’s face with all her strength one last time.

Thud!

His head snapped to the side, and several blood-stained teeth flew across the floor.

After striking him once more, Fina breathed heavily and spoke through clenched teeth.

“Get out.”

“Fina…”

“Disappear right now. Never show yourself before me again. If you do… whether it’s you or that daughter you protect so dearly, I’ll kill you both. I’ll destroy your limbs one by one, tear off your ears, gouge out your eyes, and let you bleed out in agony.”

“Fina… cough… haah…”

Kalimford, spitting blood, managed to stand.

With a trembling hand, he wiped the blood running down his face and, forcing his weakened body, staggered toward the stairs leading out of the basement.

“Fina…”

“…”

“Thank you…”

They were not words one would say to someone who had left you at death’s door, and yet Kalimford bowed respectfully and climbed the steps one by one, bracing himself against the stone wall with blood-covered hands.

When the sound of his footsteps faded away—

Splash!

Fina collapsed to her knees, planting her hands on the floor.

She silently stared at the blood covering her hands and thighs.

Tears began to fall.

“Ugh… ngh… hhk…”

She bit her lower lip and clutched her trembling chest.

What had she lived all that for?

She thought she had seen the end of her life, got carried away on her own, rushed alone toward that goal, and after centuries of effort, had obtained nothing.

Nothing had changed for hundreds of years.

She was still a foreigner in this world, destined to wander in darkness, surrounded by corpses and blood, seeing only the mark of reincarnation engraved upon her soul.

Lost.

Like sailing the open sea without a map.

Like staring at a completely blank canvas.

Like standing alone on a snow-covered plain.

That was Fina’s life.

Even the one path she believed to be her escape had crumbled.

Everything was empty.

It was then, as she tried to stand up unsteadily—

Clack, clatter!

Something fell from the experimental table and rolled into a pool of blood.

Amid the dark red, she recognized what it was.

The seal that the baron Ravenclaw had given her when she left his territory.

A metal plate hanging from a necklace, engraved with the emblem of the Ravenclaw family.

Fina’s violet eyes flew open.

She collapsed back onto the bloodstained floor and held the seal with both hands as if it were something precious.

“…Yes… that’s right…”

Looking into those eyes, something was unsettling.

Even within those pupils that seemed to spin endlessly, her reason evoked only a single man.

“Dereck… Dereck, right…?”

Loss turned into emptiness.

Emptiness became lack.

And lack blossomed into a new obsession.

The young woman who had writhed in pain and wandering felt, once again, that she had found a new objective within this endless wheel of reincarnation.

If even Kalimford had not been capable, then it was enough to find someone who surpassed him.

A man who dreamed of reaching seven stars, who possessed a vessel more vast than any mage she had seen thus far.

A mage with talent for combat magic like Kalimford, and who moreover showed mastery over confusion magic and tracking magic.

A truly colossal vessel.

He was still weaker than Fina in terms of power, but the magnitude of his potential was something even she acknowledged.

“Yes… my disciple… my disciple whom I taught… whom I taught with my own hands… my only disciple… the one who will grant me rest… the one who will make me sleep… my disciple…”

A dark, reddish energy began to swirl in Fina’s eyes.

Anyone who met that gaze would have swallowed hard and instinctively stepped back.

“Of everyone I met in this extremely long reincarnation… my disciple was the one who possessed the most brilliant talent…”

Clutching the seal tightly as if it were a treasure, Fina smiled amid the rivers of blood still flowing.

However, when she imagined the face of that disciple, now lord of the Ravenclaw territory, something made her heart ache.

She remembered Dereck, brimming with joy at the thought that his former teacher would come to visit him.

Thus, Fina pressed the seal to her chest and lowered her head.

“He is my disciple… I won’t give him to anyone… he… is my disciple…”

In the dark, bloodstained underground laboratory, the crimson eyes of the six-star necromancer mage stirred only once.

***

“…”

“Is something wrong, Master?”

“No… I suddenly felt a chill. It’s nothing. Although it does seem that the weather has grown quite cold.”

Katia glanced for a moment toward the plain they had crossed, then shook her head firmly, as if trying to shake off that ominous sensation.

After that, she turned her gaze back to the land where the academy was being built in the Duplain territory.

The scale of the project was such that simply walking through it would take quite some time.

“To raise a construction of this size in such a short period… I had heard that the Duplain family was faltering, but it seems that is already behind them. When the family members are capable, any house can stand back up.”

“…The one leading this project is not a family member.”

“…?”

“Well, it’s Miss Aiselin who is directing it.”

Lately, whenever practical work came up, Aiselin was always the first to throw herself into it with shining eyes, organizing everything and establishing systems.

In truth, all Dereck did regarding the construction of the academy was check from time to time whether everything was proceeding smoothly.

Even he sometimes wondered if it was really fine for things to be that way.

Every time he tried to get more involved, Aiselin would panic and stop him, leaving him no way to insist.

‘Dereck, you already have mountains of things to do! You can’t take on practical work too! Don’t worry, I’ll handle everything.’

She would say that with sparkling eyes, as if afraid someone might take her work away.

Meanwhile, Dereck could not help worrying that she might eventually collapse from overwork.

“Just as the rumors say, Miss Aiselin truly is versatile and thoughtful.”

Katia, on the other hand, smiled with clear satisfaction.

Noble ladies often cultivated elegance and education, but they frequently became naive, detached from reality, or excessively arrogant.

Knowing that Aiselin took charge even of such demanding and complex tasks further enhanced Katia’s good impression of her.

Dereck himself had nothing to object to; even trying to find faults, Aiselin was practically flawless.

“Then Miss Aiselin must be supervising this place. I’ve heard that in Ebelstein’s social circles, simply by walking, she fills the air with a floral fragrance, and that sitting beside her elevates anyone’s prestige. I worry that this old master might end up being a nuisance. Is my attire all right?”

“You don’t need to worry so much, Master. Miss Aiselin doesn’t judge people by such things.”

“Even so… it’s not easy to approach a treasure of the Rose Hall so casually, as delicate as a flower. If there’s time, I should check my outfit once more…”

At that moment—

Rumble! Rumble!

A thunderous sound echoed from the construction site.

Dereck, Katia, and Freya all flinched and quickly headed toward the source of the noise.

Rumble… whoosh…

Amid the cloud of dust rising into the sky, fragments of rock could be seen scattered about.

Seeing that the workers and family members remained calm, it seemed nothing serious had happened.

Most likely, during the foundation work, massive blocks of stone had been uncovered and broken apart to secure space.

Given the amount of dust, the scale was considerable, but if the base was broken properly, the work could proceed quickly.

Dereck was about to let out a sigh of relief when—

“See? I was right, Mr. Robin! Breaking the lower base with pickaxes and then securing the area with defensive magic is the most efficient method. It’s something I adapted from a book by Mr. Ravens!”

“My goodness… Miss Aiselin, I can’t compete with you. I’ve worked in construction for years and I’ve never seen anything like this. Using magic definitely increases efficiency tremendously.”

“Good, then all that’s left is to excavate the rest with pickaxes and the foundation will be complete. Let’s start from the east side.”

Amid the dust, a young woman shook out her clothes while exchanging opinions with battle-hardened workers.

She carried a heavy pickaxe resting on her shoulder and smiled with dazzling freshness.

Seeing her wipe the dust from her cheeks while wearing a frilled dress was strangely surreal.

From her eyes, full of life, starlight itself seemed to spill out.

Then the young woman’s gaze met Dereck’s.

“Oh! Dereck! You’re here! As you can see, the foundation of the auditorium is al—”

Aiselin, who had greeted him with obvious delight, gradually let her voice trail off as she noticed the guests accompanying him.

At first, she thought they were ordinary visitors, but the more she examined their appearances, the more familiar they seemed.

They were people Dereck had spoken to her about before.

“…”

Clink.

Aiselin dropped the pickaxe, her face completely stiff, as if she had lost everything.

“Ah… u-um… it seems we have guests…”

Though she had gone pale with nervousness, her reflexive attempt to adopt a composed posture was almost admirable.

However, at this point, trying to appear elegant no longer made much sense…

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