Never Die Villain

"Hoo..."

Ilya exhaled a stream of cigarette smoke into the crisp air before letting out a sigh of his own.

The smoke slowly dispersed into the cold breeze as he lowered the cigarette from his lips.

After a short moment, he shook his head.

"...I got too worked up."

Even he found his own reaction strange.

He had endured slander, ridicule, and countless verbal insults without so much as batting an eye, having long since grown accustomed to letting such things pass without a second thought.

Yet the moment someone directed those same accusations toward Mariya, something inside him refused to remain indifferent, eliciting an anger that even he had not expected.

"People really do just say anything these days."

Taking another drag from his cigarette, Ilya slowly exhaled before raising his eyes toward the towering silhouette of the Academy in the distance.

As the last traces of smoke faded into the evening air, he noticed the silhouette of a woman approaching from afar, her figure gradually becoming clearer with every step.

"Good evening, Senior."

"You finally decided to show your face, huh?"

The woman approaching him was none other than Vera.

"I’ve been... preoccupied," Ilya replied with a sigh. "It’s become rather difficult to move around on my own these days..."

"Well, I suppose every high noble in the Empire is gathered at the Imperial Palace tonight," Vera replied. "That should leave us with a little more freedom than usual. Tell me, how much time do you have?"

"I told the servants I’d be staying out tonight," Ilya answered. "They’ll pass the message along to my mother, so I don’t need to worry about returning immediately."

"Your mother?" Vera repeated, tilting her head. "Not your father?"

"...It’s complicated."

Vera looked at him for a moment before nodding.

"It isn’t my style to pry into another family’s affairs," she said. "Very well. Today’s lesson will be held somewhere else."

* * *

Ilya looked around. Of all the places Vera could have brought him, this was the last one he had expected.

"A carnival?"

To be exact, it was an abandoned carnival.

"I used to come here quite often when I was younger," Vera said. "No one visits this place anymore, which makes it the perfect place to let loose without worrying about unwanted eyes."

As she spoke, her gaze drifted toward the things Ilya had brought with him. Several wrapped garment bags were draped over one arm.

"I’ve been meaning to ask you this," Vera said. "What’s with all the suits?"

"Just a few things I picked up before coming to see you."

"Mm. Clothes do make the man."

Her attention returned to Ilya.

"So, have you been doing everything I told you?"

"Yes." Ilya nodded. "I’ve been circulating my mana every day just as you instructed, and I’ve almost finished memorizing the Codex Futha Magnus. I can recognize every character now, although reading them quickly is still difficult, and I still struggle whenever I have to connect several glyphs into a single incantation."

The Codex Futha Magnus was the oldest known system of magical script still taught on the continent, serving as the foundation upon which every modern incantation had been built, its name originating from three ancient words.

Codex, meaning book or compiled text.

Futha, a term derived from the earliest runic alphabets once used by the northern tribes, was inspired by the ancient sequence remembered by historians as Futhark.

And Magnus, meaning great or grand.

Taken together, the name was commonly translated by scholars as "The Great Book of the Futha Script," though many preferred the more poetic interpretation, "The Grand Codex of Runes."

According to magical historians, the script predated every kingdom that existed on the continent today.

Long before the rise of empires, wandering rune-sages had already carved the earliest forms of the Futha script into stone, believing that spoken words alone were too fleeting to preserve the structure of magic.

Over the centuries, countless symbols were refined, discarded, or merged into new forms, until the surviving collection was compiled into what later generations would come to call the Codex Futha Magnus, the standard by which every academy, court, and magical institution now taught the language of incantations.

Vera crossed her arms as she regarded Ilya.

"Do you remember what I told you?" she asked. "About how I was going to bridge the gap between you and the other students who have been studying magic since they were children, all within three months?"

"...Yes?"

"Good," she replied. "Then we’ll begin by making up for the two weeks we weren’t able to meet. We have already lost enough time, and I have no intention of letting your schedule dictate the pace of your training."

She slowly turned away from him.

"Those children have years of experience ahead of you," Vera continued as she walked deeper into the abandoned carnival. "Ordinary lessons won’t be enough to catch up. If I teach you the same way your professors teach everyone else, you’ll simply become another mediocre student chasing people who have already reached the finish line."

She came to a stop beside the carousel before glancing back over her shoulder.

"So we’ll do things differently. For the next three months, forget everything you think you know about learning magic. From today onward, every lesson will be designed with only one purpose in mind."

A faint smile returned to her lips.

"To force you to catch up, no matter how unreasonable the process may seem."

Ilya tilted his head as he stared at Vera’s back.

"Weren’t you already doing that, though?"

Vera chuckled. "Oh, that was merely the prelude. We haven’t even begun the real lesson yet."

Snap——!

With a snap of her fingers, the silent grounds began to change before Ilya’s eyes.

Lanterns hanging from iron posts glowed one after another with warm golden light, the rusted signboards fixed themselves as if untouched by time, and the wooden carousel at the center of the plaza slowly began to turn.

One by one, lights spread throughout the carnival until the darkness all but faded, transforming the abandoned grounds into something that looked as though it had returned to the day it first opened.

Vera turned around and held out a small object toward him.

"Wear this."

Ilya accepted it almost absentmindedly before lowering his gaze to inspect what she had placed in his hand.

Then, he could only blink.

"...Uh?"

It was a collar.

Made of dark leather reinforced with engraved silver fittings, it was clearly designed to be worn around someone’s neck.

"I think you’ve mistaken your dog’s collar for—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Vera took the collar from his hands, placed it around his neck, and fastened the clasp before he had the chance to react.

The entire exchange lasted no more than a second, leaving Ilya standing there in complete disbelief.

"...Excuse me?"

He reached for the collar, only to find that it firmly locked against his neck.

Vera calmly dusted off her hands as though nothing unusual had just happened.

"No, I’m quite certain I gave the correct one to the right animal."

"...."