Sunday arrived, and with it, another of Ethan’s now-routine visits to the infirmary for his Dark Magic lesson.
Today he showed up earlier than expected, with a restless eagerness in his step. After all, it had been a week since his st lesson, and the breakthrough he’d made in maniputing Miasma still burned fresh in his mind. Combined with the headaches his curses had been giving him—and the creeping weight of his growing credits debt—Ethan had plenty of motivation to push forward as quickly as possible.
The infirmary smelled as it always did: herbs, alcohol, and a hint of dust. Sunlight streamed zily through the high windows, and behind the front desk, Lilith sat perched on a high chair, short legs dangling, deeply absorbed in a thick book. Her violet eyes were locked on the page, her lips moving ever so slightly as she read, completely oblivious to his arrival.
Ethan cleared his throat. “Ahem.”
No reaction.
He sighed. Then, with practiced fir, he dropped to one knee and gave an overly dramatic bow—the exact kind she’d forced him to master on his first visit. “I have returned, o merciful Mistress of the Forbidden Arts, to report the results of your sacred task.”
Lilith peeked over the top of her book, a familiar smirk tugging at her lips. “Oniichan is so weird.”
“Only on Sundays.”
Her eyes glinted. “So? Did you fail? Please tell me you failed!” she asked sweetly, already closing the book and setting it aside with a thud.
“I didn’t,” Ethan said, reaching into his pouch. “I actually finished the task.”
Her smirk faded.
“…You what?”
He id both crystals on the desk with a gentle clink.
Lilith stared at them.
She didn’t blink. Didn’t move.
Her fingers slowly reached forward, picking one crystal up, then the other. She turned them over in her hands, inspected the residue inside. Her brows furrowed. She held them side by side, comparing their glow, her face gradually shifting from curiosity… to disbelief.
A slow shiver ran through her hands.
“…How long did it take you?” she asked, voice suddenly hushed.
Ethan shrugged. “About a day. I got it working after a nap, actually.”
He debated mentioning the strange dream—but brushed it off. Probably not important.
Lilith lowered the crystals with slow, careful movements. Her face was hard to read—half-composed, half... something else. Something unsure. And for the first time, Ethan noticed it.
She was scared.
It wasn’t overt. But it was there in the stiffness of her posture. The darting of her eyes between his face and the crystals. The subtle way she drew back her hand.
“Good job,” she said finally, her voice returning to its usual rhythm—but not quite its usual confidence. “That’s… impressive. Very impressive. I need to take care of something really quick. Just wait here, okay?”
“Eh? Where are you going?” Ethan asked, brows lifting.
“I said wait here.” Her voice cracked, and she immediately turned on her heel.
Ethan opened his mouth to protest, but she was already rushing out the door.
“Grandpaaaaa!” her voice echoed down the corridor in an armed squeal. “Come quick! It’s—it’s important!”
Ethan stood alone in the infirmary, watching the door she’d vanished through.
He blinked.
“…Well. That’s definitely not suspicious.”
His eyes drifted to the desk.
The book she’d been reading still sat open.
Curious, he leaned in and gnced at the title. His expression soured almost immediately.
A Saint’s Sorrow: Love and Loss in the Demon War.
The story about the forbidden love between the 3rd Saint and the Demon Duke.
Ethan immediately slid the book far away from him.
“The forbidden love story between a Demon and a Saint?” he muttered. “Talk about taste...”
Professor Alric arrived at the infirmary door with a deep scowl on his face and Lilith stubbornly dragging him by the hand.
“Lilith,” he grunted, “you’re lucky I’m not as brittle as I look. You nearly yanked my arm out of its socket.”
“You had to see it for yourself!” she insisted, cheeks puffed with equal parts panic and embarrassment. “He’s weird! Not just a little weird—really weird!”
Ethan, already sitting calmly at one of the benches, waved. “Good afternoon, Professor.”
Alric gnced at him, sighed, and waved a hand like he was brushing away a fly. “Yes, yes. Afternoon. Now—” he turned sharply to Lilith “—where did you hide the report I left on your desk?”
Lilith flinched. “It’s… um… safe. In a drawer.”
“Of course it is. Alongside your common sense, I assume.” He rubbed his temples. “If you’d read that damn message like I told you, none of this nonsense would’ve happened.”
Lilith opened the drawer and pulled out the parchment like it was cursed. She handed it over with a guilty look.
“Nope.” Alric shook his head and handed it right back. “You read it. Out loud. Maybe then you’ll remember to check your desk before decring war on your cssmates.”
Lilith swallowed hard, then began reading. “Subject: Ethan Cross. Blood sample test results. High Miasma concentration—abnormally high. So elevated it calls into question subject’s cssification as human.”
She paused.
Alric gestured for her to continue.
“But... all other vitals and biological readings are within human norms. Conclusion: subject remains human, but suffers long-term curse exposure, resulting in extreme Miasmic affinity. Further testing required for full diagnosis.”
Lilith lowered the page slowly, her face a mix of guilt and disbelief.
“Told you I wasn’t a demon,” Ethan muttered under his breath.
Alric gave him a look. “You’re still weird. We will investigate further when I have the time, but unfortunately now I'm too busy.”
Turning back to Lilith, the old man crossed his arms. “And you, Lilith. Do you really believe I would allow him to get close to you if he had a drop of Demon blood in his veins!? How many times have I told you to read the documents I leave you? Instead, you’re buried in your worthless novels!”
“Hey!” Lilith flushed. “It’s important research!”
“Research my - Sigh, forget it! I don't have time for this! At least tell me you remember what the next step in his training is.”
“I-I do!” she answered quickly. “Rune interpretation and Dark magic theory.”
“Good,” he said with a tired face. Then, with a surprisingly gentle hand, he patted her head. “Don’t let your imagination get the better of you again. And read my message next time.”
With that, Alric turned on his heel and left without another word.
Lilith turned to Ethan, her face practically glowing red. “Forget all that just happened.”
“Already erasing it,” Ethan lied smoothly.
“Good. Then let’s get to the lesson.”
She cleared her throat, trying to recover her composure as she pulled a thick book from her satchel and pced it on the desk. “So, as you should already have learned in Spellcasting Theory, runes are the foundation of all structured magic. Each one has a precise, magical meaning and reacts with mana accordingly.”
“Right,” Ethan nodded. “So how do they behave with Miasma?”
“That’s the fun part,” Lilith said, flipping the book open. “They don’t just invert—they change. Completely. The rune for ‘Sun,’ for example, doesn’t become ‘Moon’ or anything silly like that. It becomes ‘Temperament.’”
“...That’s not even close.”
“Exactly,” she said, pleased. “The connections are symbolic, not opposite. Mana and Miasma aren’t yin and yang. They’re like two different nguages built on the same alphabet. The rune for ‘Quantity’ becomes ‘Color.’ Some links that were stable in Mana casting become impossible. Others that were unstable become usable.”
“So I have to relearn every single rune I already know?” Ethan asked, groaning.
Lilith nodded, then shrugged. “Yes and no. Dark magic studies aren’t as advanced. A lot of rune meanings are still unknown or lost due to history being... less than kind to dark mages. But that’s why it’s exciting!”
Ethan frowned. “So if I discover a lost rune meaning, what then?”
Lilith’s eyes lit up—but then she blinked and looked around nervously. “You, uh, report it to me. And the Dark Society will reward you greatly.”
“Dark Society?”
“Don’t repeat that to anyone,” she hissed. “It’s just an academic organization dedicated to researching Miasma. Nothing shady.”
“Sounds incredibly shady.”
“It’s not!” she protested, clutching the book like a lifeline. “We publish papers and everything.”
Ethan held back a smirk. “Sure. I believe you.”
She huffed. “Anyway! Focus. These are the runes you need to start memorizing.”
With that, she flipped to the first page and began going over the list, teaching him the secondary meanings one by one.
Learning a single rune was easy. Learning a dozen? Manageable with some effort. But learning set after set with no break, no notes, no breath? Ethan was starting to think Lilith believed he had photographic memory.
Sure, Ethan was smart. Smarter than most, maybe. But this? This was absurd.
They were deep into the fourth set when he finally raised a hand and slumped back in his chair.
“Stop. Just—stop. I can’t take any more.”
Lilith blinked, confused. “What? We still have six more sets to go.”
“I’m not a walking archive!” Ethan groaned. “If I don’t write this down, I’m going to forget half of it by lunch—and the rest by dinner.”
“You can’t take notes,” Lilith said firmly. “What if someone finds them? What will you say? ‘Oops, just casually scribbling forbidden knowledge for fun?’”
“…Ugh.” Ethan rubbed his forehead. She had a point. If someone found a notebook filled with dark rune transtions, he’d be in serious trouble. “There has to be a way,” he muttered.
He stared at the runes before him, at their strange, shifting meanings. He needed a way to hide them. Something that wouldn’t look suspicious. Something only he could understand.
Wait... English.Nobody in this world used it. As far as he knew, English didn’t even exist here. And if he could yer that with a second disguise…
His eyes widened. “Lilith! Help me make a game.”
She stared at him like he’d gone mad. “A what?”
“A game,” he repeated, already pulling parchment from the desk and tearing it into rectangur slips. “Like a memory game.”
He scribbled a rune on one piece, and underneath it wrote the second meaning—in English. On the matching card, he wrote the Miasma meaning in English again, as well as the Mana meaning in Common Language. To anyone else, it would just look like a set of rune and their Mana meanings, but for him only the Miasma meaning would be at pin view.
“What is this?” Lilith asked, leaning over the growing pile. “What are these strange markings?”
“It’s part of the game, to be able to tell if we get the correct pair.” Ethan replied smoothly. “We’ll make cards for each rune. Two for each: one with the rune, one with the descriptions. I'll add my special markings and then we’ll py.”
“…And how do you win?”
“You flip two cards. If they match, you may keep them, but only if you can say the correct Miasma meaning aloud. If you get it wrong, your turn ends. Winner is the one with the most pairs.”
Lilith narrowed her eyes at him. “These marks are suspicious.”
Ignoring her words, Ethan insisted “It’s fun. Trust me. Didn't you say you wanted to py with me?”
Lilith hesitated for a few seconds before accepting with a smile "That's...fine. You win, Onii-chan. Let's take a break."
It didn’t take long to finish the full set. Lilith continued to eye the English words with curiosity but didn’t press further.
“Alright,” she said, sitting across from him. “Let’s py.”
Their first match was a disaster for her—Ethan won easily, since she was still figuring out the rules and strategies. But after that it became just a game of luck where the one with most lucky pairs won as no pyer ever forgot a card's position after it was flipped. As for the Miasma meaning, Lilith had already mastered it and while Ethan hadn't mastered them yet, he could always read the English subtitle he wrote.
“You’re not bad at this,” Ethan admitted, flipping a pair and smirking.
Lilith crossed her arms. “Hmph! I never lose twice!”
And just like that, Ethan’s Bck Magic lesson turned into intense, if slightly chaotic, sequence of memory matches—each one helping him remember more while disguising his notes as an innocent game.
A little over an hour passed, and Ethan leaned back in his chair, a satisfied grin on his face.
"Alright, this one is Strength." he said, flipping over the st pair with ease. "That's enough. I think I’ve got them all down."
“You sure?” Lilith squinted at him, a little pout on her lips. “We could py one more match...”
Ethan smirked. “Any more with these ones is useless. I've already memorized all 48.”
He was just about to propose adding a few new sets when his stomach let out a loud, unmistakable growl. The sound echoed through the quiet infirmary like a dramatic excmation point.
Both of them froze.
Lilith blinked. Then, without missing a beat, she burst into giggles. "Oniichan, there's a bear inside your stomach!"
Ethan looked sheepish, rubbing his belly. “Yeah, and it seem to be asking for food.”
They gnced at the nearby clock. Sure enough, it was already past noon.
Lilith hopped off her chair. “Then it can't be helped. I shall allow you to go feed your bear.”
“Same time next week?” Ethan asked, already gathering the game pieces with care.
“Of course.” She gave a mischievous smile. “Let's add a few more runes next time. After you learn 200, we can make a few spells.”
“200? Is there a need for so many?” Ethan questioned.
“I won't spoil the surprise.” Lilith answered with a mischievious smile.
As Ethan finished stacking the st of the paper pieces from their memory game, he stretched with a satisfied sigh.
“Hey, since it’s already past noon… wanna grab lunch together? My treat.”
Lilith paused, her violet eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Then, slowly, a wicked little smirk curled on her lips.
“Oho~? Are you asking me out, Onii-chan?”
Ethan blinked. “I—what? No, I just thought—”
She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, her eyes glinting with impish glee. “My, my, how bold~ You want to feed me now too? How scandalous. What would grandfather think if he heard what you said?”
“I don’t have a—” Ethan stopped himself, groaned, and dragged a hand down his face. “It’s just lunch.”
She giggled, absolutely delighted. “Mmhm~ Just lunch, he says. That’s how it always starts.”
Ethan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re impossible. Honestly—how old are you, anyway?”
Lilith’s smile turned sharp like a cat spotting a cornered mouse. She leaned in ever so slightly, eyes gleaming. “My, my. Are you asking a dy her age, Ethan? How scandalous.”
“That’s not—”
She clicked her tongue in mock disappointment. “Tch tch tch. Such a crude little question. Where are your manners? Haven’t you ever been taught that a gentleman never asks such things?”
Ethan threw up his hands. “Fine, forget I asked.”
“Hmph. I can't go anyway,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I always lunch with Grandpa on Sundays. But thanks for the entertainment, Onii-chan.”
“Right. Family time. Got it.” Ethan muttered, already backing toward the door. “See you next Sunday, then.”
He turned and left the infirmary to the sound of her giggling behind him. His stomach growled again, sending an unnecessary reminder, causing him to hurry his steps.
