Sunday, 8:00 a.m.

  After a quick wash and a modest breakfast, Ethan made his way toward the infirmary, the pce where his strange new path had begun. The promise of learning dark magic—something once whispered in fear—was now his best shot at breaking the curse shackling his body. Despite the uncertainty, there was a strange sense of resolve steadying his steps.

  As he turned the corner and the infirmary came into view, a wave of déjà vu washed over him.

  There she was.

  The same petite figure, seated behind the counter, legs swinging idly, a thick book banced on her knees. With porcein skin, glossy bck hair tied in ribbons, and rge eyes that sparkled like garnets, she looked like she’d stepped right out of a noble’s doll collection.

  But Ethan knew better.

  Behind that angelic facade was something far more mischievous—and terrifying.

  The same "cute little girl" who had once made him practically beg on his knees for muscle salve, like a lowly peasant pleading for mercy from a wicked princess.

  Just looking at her now made a cold shiver race down his spine.

  What kind of twisted upbringing creates a creature like this? he thought. And more importantly—what kind of future is she heading toward?

  He shook the thoughts from his head. He had more pressing matters to focus on. His body still ached from Saturday’s deliveries, but that pain was irrelevant now.

  Dark magic.

  Freedom from the curse.

  Answers.

  Ethan straightened his back and approached the desk with purpose.

  “Good morning,” he greeted.

  Lilith closed her book with a soft thump, turning to face him. That familiar, unnerving smile curled at her lips.

  “Welcome back, Onii-chan.”

  Ethan barely held back a wince.

  Here we go again…

  Ethan stood by the door facing her, back slightly bent, one hand over his chest and head lowered in an almost knightly bow, trying his best to make the very image of respectful subservience.

  “I must apologize for the ck of manners st time,” he said solemnly. “My name is Ethan. A humble student of this Academy, here to seek guidance in a most forbidden path. May I have the honor of knowing your name, Lady of the Infirmary?”

  For a moment, silence.

  Then—

  Lilith’s cheeks puffed out, and she covered her mouth with a tiny hand, giggling like a child watching a trained monkey dance.

  “My~! You’ve learned well, Onii-chan!” she beamed, clearly delighted. “Such proper manners! I think I might just forgive all your past transgressions.”

  Ethan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course she’d eat this up.

  Lilith tilted her head, still smiling sweetly. “My name is Lilith. But since you asked so nicely… I’ll allow you to call me that.”

  “Then I thank you, Lilith-sama,” Ethan replied, keeping up the act.

  She leaned forward over the desk, eyes glinting like a cat about to pounce. “Good. Because now that we’re properly introduced…”

  She snapped her fingers, and the curtain behind her closed as if pulled by invisible hands and the door behind Ethan locked itself.

  “…it’s time for your first lesson.”

  Ethan steeled himself.

  Lilith circled him like a noble evaluating a servant at auction. Her tiny feet made no sound against the infirmary floor, but her presence weighed heavily with every step.

  “Not like that! You look like a bent stick! Back straight—but not stiff. You’re not a corpse, Onii-chan.”

  “Yes, Lilith-sama,” Ethan muttered under his breath, adjusting his posture for what had to be the thirtieth time.

  “Hands neat, fingers rexed. Do not cw the air like a feral beast.” She gently flicked his hand with a single finger, then moved on. “Now the smile. Show me again!”

  Ethan tried.

  “No, no, no!” she sighed in theatrical disappointment, crossing her arms. “You look like you’re selling snake oil. Less teeth. Softer eyes. Polished, not smug!”

  He tried again.

  “…Better.”

  A rare moment of approval.

  Ethan, internally, was screaming. This is supposed to be a Dark Magic lesson! What am I doing!?

  And yet—there was something in her tone, her eyes, the peculiar way she kept her distance yet guided his every move, that warned him not to dismiss this as just a game.

  So he didn’t. He pyed along.

  Another fifteen minutes passed before Lilith finally gave a dainty little nod and returned to her chair. She sat down, legs swinging gently off the side, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Good enough,” she said. “Now, tell me, Onii-chan… you didn’t come for sore muscle potions this time, did you?”

  Ethan straightened, now far more composed thanks to her relentless coaching.

  “I’m here to learn Dark Magic, as promised… but uh, I wouldn’t mind another one of those potions, either.”

  Lilith tilted her head with a mischievous smile. “Greedy already, are we?”

  She hopped off her chair, retrieved a vial from the desk, and casually tossed it to him. “Here, Onii-chan. You earned it with your very respectable bow earlier.”

  Ethan caught the vial midair and gave a short nod. “Thanks… didn’t expect that to work.”

  “Consider it a reward for effort,” she said sweetly, then crossed her legs and gestured for him to speak. “Now, before we get started—what exactly do you know about Dark Magic?”

  “Not much,” Ethan admitted. “Only that it’s forbidden. And apparently, it’s the only thing that can help me break the curse I have.”

  “Fair enough,” Lilith nodded, accepting the answer without judgment. “That means you know nothing. So let me break it down.”

  She shifted into teacher mode, her voice calm and precise.

  “Dark Magic isn't so different from regur magic. It follows the same structural principles, the same casting framework. The biggest difference lies in what it uses—instead of Mana, it uses Miasma, sometimes called Death Mana.”

  “Miasma…” Ethan repeated, frowning. “So it's like an alternate fuel source?”

  “Exactly,” she said, pleased. “Miasma has different properties from Mana. It’s heavier, denser, and reacts differently to the world around it. But—crucially—it can be converted into normal Mana, and vice versa, under certain conditions.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Converted? So... they're interchangeable?”

  “With enough skill, yes,” Lilith replied. “But the process isn’t simple. That’s a topic for another day. Today, you’re going to learn the very first step—how to identify Miasma.”

  She pointed to a shelf near the back. “Bring me the bck box with the little skull on it.”

  “Of course there’s a skull on it…” Ethan muttered under his breath, but he did as instructed.

  He retrieved the small wooden box and brought it over. Lilith motioned for him to open it.

  Inside y a crystal—dark, faintly translucent, and swirling with a bck and violet mist.

  “That,” Lilith said, “is a Miasma Crystal. It naturally draws in death mana from the environment. You’re going to use it to learn how to sense Miasma for the first time.”

  Ethan leaned in. “All right... so, what do I do?”

  “Touch it,” she said simply. “Let it react to you. That’s all.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then pced two fingers on the crystal’s surface.

  Immediately, a chill shot up his arm—neither painful nor pleasant, but... unfamiliar.

  He pulled back slightly. “It’s... cold.”

  He pulled back slightly. “It’s... cold.”

  Lilith gave a small, approving nod. “As expected. While mana is typically associated with warmth and light, Miasma is tied to cold and darkness. That coldness you feel, though—it’s just an illusion. No matter how much Miasma you gather, you’ll never be able to freeze water or chill the air.”

  She crossed her arms and gave a thoughtful gnce toward the shelves. “There was once a researcher who tried using Miasma to build a cold chamber. In the end, everything he stored in it rotted twice as fast.”

  She giggled. “But I’m getting off-topic. The point is, the easiest way to tell the two apart is through that illusion: warmth for mana, cold for Miasma.”

  Then her smile widened slightly, and she pointed at him. “You're lucky your body is so cursed. It makes you more sensitive to Miasma. Most people could hold that crystal for days and never feel a thing.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure whether to be fttered or horrified. On one hand, it was rare praise. On the other, it showed how bad the condition of his body truly was. Still, if even this had an advantage... maybe it wasn’t all bad.

  “Alright,” Lilith continued, turning back to the desk and grabbing another object. “If you can feel it, the next step is to try maniputing it. I don’t expect success right away, so here—” she handed him a second crystal, smaller and faintly tinted.

  “This will be your homework. Extract the Miasma from the first crystal and transfer it to this second one until the levels are equal. If you can manage that, we’ll move to the next step.”

  Then, with her usual impish grin, she waved a hand dismissively. “You’re dismissed for today. Let’s py again soon, Onii-chan.”

  Ethan bowed deeply, one hand across his chest, the other behind his back, posture straight just as she had drilled into him.

  “Thank you for your gracious guidance, Lady Lilith,” he said with a perfectly measured tone. “Your generosity humbles this unworthy servant. I shall cherish your lesson as if it were a gift from the heavens themselves.”

  Lilith gave an approving nod, clearly pleased. “Fufufu~ Good. You may go.”

  Only then did Ethan straighten up and turn around, leaving the infirmary with the two crystals and potion in hand.

  He uncorked the vial and downed it in a single gulp. The soothing warmth spread almost immediately, untying the soreness in his legs as if his fatigue had simply vanished.

  “That stuff's insane,” he muttered, tucking the empty vial carefully into his breast pocket.

  Then his eyes dropped to the two crystals.

  One was cold—unnaturally so, like a piece of frozen metal—and the other was inert, just a simple stone. Yet they were identical in shape and size. Well, maybe not completely identical, but simir enough.

  “Alright... one’s filled with Miasma, the other’s empty.”

  He sat down on a bench and stared at the crystals.

  Now came the hard part.

  “How the hell am I supposed to move it…?”

  Ethan leaned back against the dormitory wall, letting the two crystals rest in his p. The sun hung zily in the sky, casting a warm glow over the Academy grounds, but it did little to ease his frustration.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

  “I’m missing something…”

  He turned the crystals over in his hands, again and again. One still felt cold, like the chill of a moonless night. The other? Just a rock. As inert as his understanding of what he was even supposed to do.

  He knew how to move mana—it was instinctive. From the moment you could feel it inside your body, you could will it, shape it, direct it. Like flexing a muscle you never realized you had.

  But Miasma? It was like trying to move a limb that wasn’t even there.

  He tried again. Focused on the chill. Tried to grasp it, to tug at it gently with the same mental grip he used on mana.

  Nothing.

  Tried a more forceful pull.

  The cold intensified for a moment, but then slipped away entirely—as if it recoiled from his intent.

  He muttered a curse under his breath. “Figures…”

  Was he going about this wrong? Was he trying to control something with the wrong set of tools? Trying to write with the wrong nguage?

  He toyed again with the idea of going back to Lilith. A single question and she’d probably give him some smug, cryptic line like ‘Onii-chan, did you really think it would be that easy?’ followed by her insufferable giggle.

  Yeah. No. Not today.

  Ethan groaned, lying back on the grass beside the path. He stared up at the clouds, letting the tension drain from his limbs.

  “Maybe I’m just overthinking it…” he whispered.

  Or maybe… he just needed a break.

  His grip loosened on the crystals, resting them by his side. The warmth of the potion still lingered faintly in his muscles. The breeze passed gently, and for a brief moment, he let himself drift in that simple peace.

  Just a nap. Just for a minute.

  He closed his eyes.

  He stood atop the fortress.

  Before his eyes stretched a colossal battlefield—an endless tide of chaos where monsters of all shapes and sizes cshed against a sea of humans, elves, dwarves, and beastkin. The cng of steel, the beat of war drums, the roar of orders, and the cries of the dying merged into a single, overwhelming symphony of war.

  At his feet knelt five devils—each one silent, heads bowed, awaiting his command.

  He gave no speech. No words of encouragement. No stirring decration.

  He simply raised a hand, pointed toward the human army, and spoke a single word:

  “Kill.”

  That was all it took.

  The devils moved at once, each one unleashing their unique brand of devastation.

  The Earth Devil dove into the ground, tunneling beneath the battlefield, turning the soil to quicksand in his wake and dragging dozens of warriors into the depths.

  The Fire Devil stretched out his arms and summoned a rain of fme that cascaded over the battlefield, engulfing friend and foe alike.

  The Wind Devil soared into the skies, conjuring howling tornadoes that flung soldiers through the air like ragdolls.

  The Water Devil released a toxic mist, a haze of madness-inducing poison that warped the minds of the monsters, sending them into a berserk frenzy of suicidal aggression.

  And then, the Dark Devil raised his hands.

  Miasma flowed from him in waves, seeping into the earth, into the corpses, into the air itself. With a single guttural chant, he raised the dead—human and monster alike—as soulless thralls to his will.

  He himself did not stay behind.

  Gripping a scythe forged from bone and shadow, he leapt into the fray. The bde danced, cleaving through ranks of soldiers like a farmer harvesting wheat.

  A line of knights charged, desperate and blind to their fear, trampling even their allies in their mad rush.

  He met them head-on.

  Each swing of his scythe carved through armor and flesh alike, the steel echoing like a bell of death. Knights fell by the dozens.

  In the distance, a squad of mages gathered and chanted in unison, conjuring a massive fireball that bzed across the sky like a miniature sun.

  He raised his scythe, coating the bde in thick Miasma—and with a single ssh, split the fireball in two, scattering its remains like ash in the wind.

  Then, he lifted his left hand.

  Dozens of bckened magic spears formed midair, each radiating cold malevolence. With a flick of his fingers, they unched, skewering the distant spellcasters before they could react.

  The sughter continued until the sun dipped below the horizon, and only silence remained.

  The battlefield y still, a sea of corpses and blood.

  He stood amid it all, ughing.

  A cruel, proud, victorious ugh that echoed across the silent dead.

  And then—

  Ethan woke up.

  Sweat clung to his back. His heart pounded in his chest. The vivid sensation of the dream still lingered, like a ghost clinging to his skin.

  He didn’t waste a second.

  Reaching for the cold crystal, he closed his fingers around it and focused.

  And then—he felt it.

  The cold.

  Not just touching him, but responding to him.

  A slow shift. A subtle pull.

  A faint, hazy mist leaked from the crystal, swirling around his fingers like smoke in reverse.

  It flowed into his hand.

  His palm turned ice cold, almost numb.

  Then, he reached for the second crystal.

  With the same focus, the mist moved again—leaving his hand and entering the other crystal.

  His eyes widened.

  “I… I did it,” Ethan whispered.

  He had actually done it.

  He had maniputed Miasma.

  A surge of etion filled him, banishing all fatigue. The memory of the dream faded into the back of his mind, overtaken by the rush of success.

  For once, he had accomplished something he believed impossible.

  He set the crystals aside with a newfound sense of purpose.

  His first Dark Magic lesson was complete. His first step toward freeing himself from the curses had begun.

  Now all he had to do was wait for next Sunday.

  And he couldn’t wait.