Chapter 50: Reluctant to Let Go?

“Yes.”

Meli took over her words gently.

“Harvey has no magical aptitude. I’m not the only one who knows this—the Dean has also figured it out.”

When she had stroked that boy’s hair earlier, she had taken the opportunity to draw the surrounding magic elements closer to him, trying to get them to approach him.

But neither wind, fire, nor even the more docile water elements gave any response to that clean-featured boy.

He was like a silent stone, standing quietly outside the tide of magic.

It was precisely for this reason that Meli grew even more curious.

She wasn’t worried that her disciple would develop feelings of love.

That was the Duke’s Mansion’s problem to deal with.

What she was truly curious about was why this girl, who usually kept everyone at a distance, would treat him differently.

Lavia gripped her own arm, a rare hint of nervousness flickering across her face.

There was even a touch of helplessness mixed into that nervousness.

Of course, she had known about this for a long time.

She had known ever since Harvey clutched at that almost impractical hope.

After all, how could she not sense the desires of someone she spent every day with?

Knowing that Harvey wanted the magic array diagram for Mana Sensing, she had specially found it for him.

As long as she kept up her innocent appearance in front of him and did everything she could to satisfy him, that was enough.

Lavia pursed her lips and said in a low voice, “This has nothing to do with you, Instructor.”

Meli shook her head.

“It’s not just me.”

“Even that old geezer has figured it out.”

The “old geezer” she referred to was naturally the Academy’s Chairman.

Weien A’erwen.

This old man was not only the last surviving Grand Mage in the Kingdom of Rune,

but also one of the few top-tier mages on the entire continent.

The most basic requirement to bear the title of “Grand Mage” was Four-Element Magic Mastery.

Meli looked at Lavia and said seriously, “Lavia, a child like him won’t be able to stay at the Magic Academy.”

She had seen too many people enter the Magic Academy with various reasons, and not a few were like Harvey.

They didn’t belong here, yet they were more easily attracted to magic than anyone else.

It was precisely because magic was so dazzling that it always made people harbor unrealistic hopes.

But the more they yearned, the heavier the despair when they finally realized they had no chance at all.

Those without talent couldn’t even sense the elements.

In the end, all they could face was undeniable failure.

Such an outcome was a wound that could never heal in a lifetime.

Lavia’s brows furrowed instantly, her voice turning cold.

“He’s my person.”

“You have no right to interfere.”

Upon hearing this, Meli just smiled.

“Yes, he is your person now.”

“But his thirst for magic is obvious even to an old woman like me.”

She leisurely arranged the scrolls at hand, “He’s even smarter than you when it comes to these basic pieces of knowledge.”

Meli raised the scrolls in her hand.

Those were the “homework” that Lavia had once handed over to her.

Among them, many seemed like amateur ideas but were extremely interesting. Meli quite liked the ingenuity of the proposer.

“Do you think a child like him would really be content learning nothing at all?”

At the end of her words, a hint of seriousness entered Meli’s kind gaze.

Lavia fell silent.

Her fingers toyed unconsciously with the blue crystal she had somehow taken out.

She knew too well what Harvey’s eyes looked like when he watched magic.

It wasn’t a momentary curiosity.

It was an almost stubborn longing.

If he didn’t truly love it, who would willingly bury themselves in those dry and obscure pieces of knowledge?

And yet—

what he most wanted to reach for, fate had not granted him even a single share from the very beginning.

This made Lavia deeply dissatisfied.

Even angry.

Harvey was clearly more suited to learning magic than she was, yet fate chose to toy with him like this.

She couldn’t imagine what Harvey would be like when he learned the truth.

That was why she never allowed him to leave the Duke’s Mansion easily.

Whatever magic he wanted to see, she could demonstrate it for him herself.

But what he wanted was ultimately not a performance.

So in the end, she had given him that paper.

She planned to comfort him and hold him in her arms when he eventually learned the truth.

‘That was her plan, wasn’t it?’

A brief flicker of confusion passed through Lavia’s eyes.

Some deliberately erased memories were suddenly touched, causing her train of thought to pause for a moment.

Meli watched her quiet state, the smile in her eyes fading slightly.

“Is it to protect him that you keep him by your side?”

“Or is it because you yourself can’t bear to let go?”

Lavia lifted her head suddenly.

This time, she did not immediately retort.

At the other end of the laboratory, the ice-blue magic crystal quietly refracted cold light under the lamp.

The pale blue fell on her face, reflecting an answer she didn’t want to think deeply about.

…

A few days passed.

Though everything seemed no different from the first day they arrived, the atmosphere inside the mansion had become somewhat strange.

It wasn’t due to the bewildered feelings stirred up by Evelyn—Harvey was sure of that.

The most obvious change wasn’t in those two, but in Lavia.

Despite finally leaving the Duke’s Mansion and moving into the mansion assigned by the Academy,

her face no longer held the ease and joy of the first day.

More often than not, Lavia kept a cold face, as if she were sulking.

That feeling was increasingly resembling Evelyn.

These two, mistress and maid, were both equally beautiful and equally hard to approach. Now that both had put on cold faces, even the air in the mansion felt tight, causing Harvey, the only exception, to unconsciously speak in a lowered voice.

And Lavia no longer asked Harvey to accompany her when she went out.

Her reason was reasonable enough.

The Academy was still investigating the incident at the fountain. To avoid further accidents, it was enough to have only Evelyn accompany her when going out.

Though it seemed strange to have a more fragile maid accompany her instead of a male servant,

Harvey had no objection.

After all, only he knew that the Head Maid was no ordinary maid.

In fact, at first, he had even secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Since that afternoon, he had been afraid to look directly at Evelyn’s cold face.

She was the one who had said those dangerous and ambiguous things, and then she was the one who calmly returned to her usual demeanor.

That line, “Let’s stop here for today,” still came to Harvey’s mind from time to time.

The Head Maid had said it was a lesson to prevent him from becoming obsessed, to help him correctly understand how to interact with the opposite sex.

She was clearly fulfilling the role of a teacher, even at the cost of using herself…

Harvey patted his own face and refocused on the book in his hands.

Although the content of the lesson had deviated, the Head Maid was still teaching him knowledge.

He had to respect his teacher.

But after a few days like this, Harvey began to feel down.

The mansion was too quiet.

So quiet that even the sound of turning pages was extremely clear.

He stayed alone in his room all day, reading during the day and organizing things in the evening.

It was too boring.

He had already flipped through the book several times, the edges curling. Harvey took out another book to put on top, then placed a clean stone on the two books.

He left his room alone. The afternoon sunlight fell through the corridor windows.

He planned to go to the kitchen to brew a cup of coffee.

Drinking a little coffee before a nap would make him more energetic in the afternoon.

Just as Harvey reached the guest hall, he suddenly saw a figure hurrying past from the other end.

It was the maid beside the Princess, the one who had gone to the kitchen with him before.

She was walking very quickly, her expression also off, lifting her skirt as she rushed through the corridor.

She was so urgent that she had even abandoned her usual basic decorum.

Harvey was startled for a moment and instinctively wanted to turn back.

But the maid also happened to look up and see him. Her eyes immediately lit up.

As if she had found her target, she quickly walked toward him.

“Great, you’re here.”