Chapter 119

It couldn’t be Lexius since he was the sort to barge in without warning. Yet aside from him, there was no one else who would come visit at such a late hour. Even the maids wouldn’t come so late at night.

“Who is it?”

There was no answer from the other side of the door. Instead, with a soft click, the door began to open cautiously.

Slowly, it swung inward, and in the moonlight streaming through the window, the visitor’s silhouette was revealed. Ariel was so startled she nearly fainted. Fearing she might scream in the middle of the night, she hastily clapped a hand over her mouth. Her wide, terrified eyes did all the screaming for her.

“Forgive the late hour. This was the only time I could manage, pardon the intrusion.”

A melodious voice drifted kindly through the doorway. The man entered, closing the door behind him with a soft snap, and approached her. Instinctively, she stepped back and addressed him.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince…”

Her voice trembled as she spoke. She kept retreating until her back hit the wall, making it clear she wanted to keep her distance from him.

Even so, Devoncia simply smiled gently at her.

To Ariel, the man before her felt almost like an apparition.

“I heard you’d gone to another kingdom on diplomatic business…”

“You even knew that? It couldn’t have been Skylar… No, it must have been Lexius who told you.”

He replied with casual indifference, then fixed his gaze steadily on her face.

“I heard you were injured.”

The moment Devoncia said those words, she realized he must have placed someone to watch over her. Only a very select few, including Lexius and Canon, knew about her injury, and Lexius had made sure to keep it tightly under wraps, even from the imperial family. If he knew, it could only mean she was under surveillance.

“I was worried.”

His eyes were so gentle, it was almost overwhelming.

“I’ve been told Lex handled things well, but even so, I wanted to come see for myself.”

“….”

“Are you still in pain? Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.”

“N-No, not at all! I’m all right. I’m sorry for making you worry.”

“Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.”

As he spoke, he reached into the inner pocket of his uniform and pulled something out. The object caught the moonlight and shone with a dark gleam.

“But still, I can’t have you getting hurt again…”

Carrying the item he’d taken from his coat, he stepped closer to her.

Ariel’s gaze dropped to his hand. It was a delicately curved bracelet, its polished surface gleaming black as obsidian. While she stood frozen in surprise, Devoncia gently took her wrist in his hand, his long fingers encircling her slender arm with care.

“It’s a gift.”

He fastened the bracelet himself around her left wrist. The smooth band felt cold against her skin, the dark line gleaming starkly against her pale complexion. As his fingers slipped away, the slender, unyielding bracelet remained, clasped around her wrist. She hadn’t even had time to protest, not that she could have refused a gift from the Crown Prince, anyway.

She looked back and forth between the bracelet now fastened on her wrist and Devoncia, her eyes filled with confusion.

“What is this?”

“It helps regulate your magic. It controls the flow of mana around you, so it will protect you from harm in sudden situations, like a barrier would.”

“Why do I need to regulate my magic? If it’s for protection, wouldn’t it be better to just use a defensive barrier?”

“You’re right, a barrier is certainly easier.”

“Then why…”

“But as an academy student, you need to be able to use your magic. If you put up a barrier, your mana would be completely blocked, which wouldn’t do you any good. Besides, you actually have a considerable amount of magic. For a beginner like you, it might be difficult to manage, so you’ll need something to help you control it.”

“I… I see. Thank you very much.”

Ariel awkwardly expressed her thanks, doing her best to mask the wariness in her eyes, but Devoncia only smiled. His expression made it clear he wouldn’t remove the bracelet no matter how much she might protest or ask him.

Bzzzz—

The moment she thanked him, her phone, hidden away in the small drawer beside her bed, began to vibrate.

‘Did his favorability just go up?’

She did her best not to glance at the drawer. Giving him any reason to notice her phone would be disastrous. Instead, she bowed her head and busied herself, fidgeting uneasily with the bracelet. The timing of the vibration could hardly be a coincidence.

‘Did his favorability increase because I accepted his gift? Or does this bracelet have some other meaning? Surely, it doesn’t have some dangerous function… Should I ask him to take it off? Not that he’d listen.…’

After a bout of inner debate, she decided to put her worries aside. If it truly bothered her, she could always take it off later when he wasn’t looking. For now, there was something even more pressing on her mind, like why was he here when he’d said he’d be away in the kingdom for at least another week?

“Um… Your Highness, did you return today?”

“No, I’m still officially in the kingdom. I’m just in the middle of my schedule.”

“Then how did you get here…”

“Teleportation. So I’ll have to leave again soon.”

Devoncia spoke as if he had simply stepped out for a brief stroll. He even said he would be heading back soon.

Ariel was left speechless. She knew just how absurd, how impossible such a thing really was.

Teleportation consumed an immense amount of magic. Even moving just a few meters would completely exhaust an ordinary mage. Even Lexius and Skylar, who possessed overwhelming reserves of magic despite it not being their specialty, would limit themselves to no more than five jumps a day, and even then, they avoided using it if possible.

The farther the distance, the more magic was consumed, the cost multiplying exponentially. And the distance from the kingdom to the empire was well over a thousand kilometers.

“I’ll be fine.”

Noticing the uncertainty on her face, he smiled as he spoke.

“My abilities are on a different level.”

He wasn’t just boasting. Without so much as stepping out of the room, he vanished in an instant, truly teleporting all that distance once again.

Ariel couldn’t help but dwell on his words about being ‘on a different level,’ but she set the thought aside for now. At the moment, her attention was drawn instead to the phone tucked away in her drawer.

‘If his favorability has gone up, maybe that means the glitch has been fixed? Or will I even be able to check?’

As the dark screen of her phone lit up, a system window appeared. Ariel, who had been focused only on favorability, froze at the completely unexpected notification that appeared.