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Respect your mentor.

Meeting a good mentor is as blessed as growing up under good parents.

Treasure the relationship between mentor and disciple, and protect your mentor’s legacy as if it were your own life.

Just as your mentor did.

— A saying of wizards passed down through ages.

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Episode 14 – One Religion, One Faith, Two Saints

The Duke’s proposal was overt.

He asked if she had any interest in learning magic from him. In simpler terms, he was suggesting a mentor-disciple relationship.

There was no need to overthink it.

“Are you saying you’ll teach me magic…?”

“Yes.”

At the Duke’s affirmative response, Camila’s eyes widened like lanterns.

Blink. Blink.

Her bright blue eyes sparkled as she repeatedly opened and closed her eyelids, clearly showing she was astonished.

Though I had hinted at this in advance, it seemed impossible to maintain composure. Camila took small, calming breaths to steady her excited heart.

“I’m incredibly grateful, but… I’ve never properly learned magic before.”

“I know.”

The Duke smiled.

“I’m aware you haven’t had the opportunity to learn magic or had the means to do so. That’s why I’m making this offer to you.”

With his gentle demeanor, Camila’s tension started to dissipate.

“You possess the talent to wield fire, and I am a magician who commands flames. Within the Magic Tower, this type of magic is referred to as elemental magic. Do you… know who is the top elemental magician on the continent?”

The academies known as the Trident of the Tower have three branches.

Sorcery, Astrology, and Elemental.

Among them, the largest membership belongs to the Elemental Academy. As the most populous group, it is filled with many talented magicians. However, no magician would dare to compare themselves to the Duke in this situation.

After all, she was an Archmage.

Without hesitation, Camila pointed at the woman before her.

The Duke nodded with a soft smile.

“Correct.”

Even receiving the title of the continent’s greatest magician didn’t cause the Duke to rejoice excessively. Instead, he began to speak calmly with a gentle voice.

Alexandra Petrovna’s proposal was straightforward.

Mentorship.

Alexandra Petrovna would take Camila as her disciple, becoming her mentor, while Camila would become her student.

“Learn magic. I will teach you directly.”

“Directly?”

What a groundbreaking offer.

In the century since the “Age of Barbarism” ended, the Duke had never once taken on a disciple unlike other Archmages she had stood shoulder to shoulder with.

If one were to find someone who could claim to be her disciple, it would be the first graduates of the Elemental Academy, but such claims would hold no meaning.

After all, Alexandra Petrovna was the founder and president of the Elemental Academy.

While academy members could seek her teachings, it was not a relationship of mentor and disciple as understood in the magical community.

However, being directly taught was a different matter.

To learn directly from the Duke meant Camila would become the Duke’s favored pupil. Considering that magicians in the Magic Tower patiently endure unreasonable customs to become a disciple of a renowned mentor, Camila was a very fortunate magician.

“If you inherit my knowledge, I can also lay down the heavy burden I’ve carried for so long.”

“Burden?”

“Every magician carries their own burdens. Things like the spells their mentors left behind, the results of their research. It’s a sort of legacy. Although I don’t have anyone I can call a mentor to have inherited anything, I don’t want the hard-earned knowledge to perish with me in obscurity.”

So, she hoped Camila would inherit that legacy. She omitted the rest, but that was the implication.

I exchanged glances with Francesca, who was quietly watching the conversation between the two, pondering deeply.

To put it figuratively, an Archmage holds a position equivalent to that of a conglomerate in our society. Not just any conglomerate, but a billionaire. Yet, here was someone proposing to pass on their legacy to someone they had just met today.

In such cases, there are usually two possibilities.

The Duke saw something in Camila, or the Duke herself had lost her mind.

“…”

For now, the latter didn’t seem likely. The Emperor wasn’t soft enough to let a senile old woman out into the world.

After all, he was the one who had confined tens of thousands of his citizens in camps and cleansed the borders.

So, the answer was clear.

“It seems the Hero has caught her interest. Saying something like that is quite telling.”

“Indeed. I can see it too. If left alone, she might just take her in as a granddaughter.”

Francesca and I took a step back to observe the conversation between Alexandra Petrovna and Camila.

Reactions varied. Francesca seemed intrigued by the situation itself, while I felt anxious.

What on earth could be prompting a hundred-year-old old lady at the twilight of her years to take on a disciple?

No matter how powerful a magician she was, she was on the verge of senility. Shouldn’t she be busy looking for a good plot of land to build a villa and a skilled caretaker instead of doing this?

After all, Nikolai VI, who had been out hunting and exercising vigorously in his younger days, had also fallen ill and withdrawn from the world in his later years.

What on earth could have prompted the Duke to travel all the way to Lateran to take Camila as his disciple?

I was filled with questions, yet I lacked the desire to ask them.

At that moment, the Duke spoke.

“Every one of the children who became disciples of the Archmage has grown into extraordinary talents without exception. The sisters Laonome and Perimede, who learned illusions from Rishidike, became remarkable illusionists, while Khalid, who studied sorcery under Sulayman, made a name for himself as a master craftsman. What do you think you could become?”

“……”

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s research or training. If you learn from me, the Royal Family will support you with everything you need, allowing you to focus solely on your studies without worry.”

It was a beguiling offer that was hard to refuse.

Anyone who sought to understand the principles and explore truth through magic would have undoubtedly accepted at this point.

However, there was something the Duke had not anticipated.

That was the fact that Camila was a rather unorthodox magician.

“Wow, just hearing that is wonderful!”

Camila began to clap her hands. And that was the end of it.

Lifelong research, a coveted mentor, even reaching a higher realm meant nothing. Her interest was sole and unwavering.

Camila, who had consistently responded with a curious indifference to the Archmage’s proposal, suddenly had her eyes sparkling for the first time.

“But I have one question.”

“Feel free to ask.”

“Will you teach me the magic to transform into a cat?”

“…A cat?”

A subtle change crossed Alexandra Petrovna’s face, her expression flitting between confusion and surprise at the mention of a cat.

“From what I understand, ancient magicians could transform into animals. Am I mistaken?”

“To call it ancient is an oversight. In my youth, transformation spells were quite commonly used among magicians. But why are you curious about such a thing?”

Camila beamed brightly.

“I want to learn it!”

“And why is that?”

“Well, because it sounds cool!”

“……”

The Duke looked at the girl with a baffled expression. A fleeting hint of embarrassment swept across his pale face like a blank sheet of paper, but he quickly shook his head in disapproval.

“That is impossible. The spells for transforming into animals and objects are among the magician’s taboos. It is prohibited to leave any written records or even share them with others.”

“Ah….”

Camila’s face crumbled in despair, akin to the expression of a teacher who lost his country, Kim Gu.

Much like a raccoon I had once seen on the internet, she placed her hands on her face, her eyes wide open and mouth agape in shock.

Her expression was so vivid that even without uttering a word, I could almost feel the disappointment and frustration she was going through.

Alexandra Petrovna, who had been vigorously rejecting the transfer of such magic with a wave of her hand, shuddered slightly, then cleared her throat as she began to speak hesitantly.

“Ahem, ahem. I apologize. However, I will teach you other magic that you might find satisfying…”

“I don’t want to learn.”

“Don’t worry and just learn the magic, um…?”

In that instant, the Duke’s flustered voice echoed throughout the room.

It was a voice that hardly suited that of an Archmage and Duke of the Empire. In this rare moment of embarrassment, Alexandra Petrovna was caught off guard while Camila seized the opportunity to speak.

“I will not learn magic.”

Her tone was resolute.

Silence descended upon the room.

The Duke, Camila, Francesca, and I—all of us remained silent.

Alexandra Petrovna, who had suggested a mentor-disciple relationship, blinked her eyes in confusion. She seemed unable to comprehend what she had just heard.

Francesca stood with her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide, mirroring her surprise. Her violet eyes, reminiscent of violets, blinked rapidly.

The flustered Archmage and the astonished descendant of the Archmage.

In this silence, the only one looking relatively composed was the Englishman with a lost expression on his face.

“Ah…!”

I slapped my forehead.

Truly, all manner of hideous and bizarre things seem to emerge from England.

Now it seemed even people were no exception.

 

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