“I can’t avoid Matian’s gaze.

It felt like I was caught in a trap.

My mouth became completely dry from the tension, and playful words like ‘Should I tell you if you ask?’ or ‘If you have something good, let’s share it’ withered away before they could sprout.

Rukna slightly stuck out her tongue and moistened her lips first.

The bright blue eyes relentlessly followed the movement of the small flesh.

Then he also moistened his lips. It was the same action, but the hidden intentions were clearly different.

This series of actions made him look not like a cheerful youth, but a grown male.

‘It’s awkward every time this happens.’

With her heart pounding and the inside of her palms tingling, Rukna repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fists.

To break this tense atmosphere, she averted her gaze and opened her mouth.

“It’s great. You know a lot too.”

A sheepish voice sarcastically said.

‘He knows a lot, huh.’

Matian smiled crookedly.

‘Rather than that, saying he has a great imagination would be more accurate.’

The lewd imaginations that bloomed in his mind every moment supported this.

He didn’t know he was such a creative talent.

‘Even now, seeing Rukna’s reddened cheeks….’

Matian raised his hand and lightly touched her cheek.

Then, like a herbivore, she flinched in surprise and widened her eyes.

As he had always thought, her eyes resembled Lake Kuhala, the treasure of the Golden Plains.

Every time they reflected him like a mirror, he felt a strange exhilaration and had the urge to fall into them.

‘Even though I can’t swim.’

Anyhow, Rukna seems to be in a difficult situation.

Matian cut off the continuous thoughts and opened his mouth that had been heavily closed.

“So what I’m saying is, be careful even among fellow men.”

“Uh, okay.”

Rukna scratched her cheek with her finger and relaxed her tension.

“Especially be careful of Chad. There are many suspicious circumstances about him.”

“Yeah, thanks for worrying.”

“Be wary of that bastard Bolton too.”

“Haha.”

“I’m not joking. It’s true that his eyes sometimes look strange.”

“What about Aaron?”

“That guy hates men who treat him like a doll, but he didn’t turn hostile towards you. It’s better to be cautious in advance.”

“Then you should be careful too?”

Rukna giggled and poked Matian’s side.

It was half a joke, but Matian’s expression was strange.

Just as the surprised Rukna was about to say it was a joke,

Instead of answering, Matian vigorously rubbed Rukna’s head with a towel.

“Ack, my hair!”

After thoroughly drying Rukna’s hair without a single drop of moisture, Matian retrieved the towel and draped it over her narrow shoulders. The large towel almost entirely covered her upper body.

We need to feed her some meat so she can grow, Matian muttered, and Rukna raised her head saying ‘Huh?’

Her red and plump lips were at a distance where they could almost touch if she just slightly lowered her head.

Gulp. Matian quickly changed the subject.

“You know we have to leave for the Golden Plains in three days, right? Pack your things in advance.”

“Ah, it’s already that time.”

“The situation there is not normal, so don’t be careless and prepare properly. The sunshine in the Golden Plains is strong, so get a sunburn treatment elixir from Bolton in advance. Also pack an insect repellent cream. It’s a humid and hot region, so there will be a lot of flying insects at night.”

Matian slowly listed the other necessary equipment.

He explained quite specifically why each item was needed, as if Rukna was going alone.

“Isn’t the student council going together?”

“We were drafted as punishment for the lab incident, so our schedule itself is different from yours. You can slowly come with the new priests.”

“Ah.”

“Until then, be careful not to catch a cold.”

Matian patted Rukna’s head a few times, then turned his body.

Rukna stroked the top of her head where his touch had brushed, staring at Matian’s back.

His rough touch had a feeling that he had never patted someone before. But would it be strange if she felt it was affectionate?

Rukna mulled over the confusing thoughts inwardly.

Matian left the bathroom first. Rukna quietly looked at his back, counted to 100 inwardly, and only then took a step.

She didn’t want anyone to catch her cheeks that were too red to be from just taking a bath.

A few days later.

In front of an altar where the corpses of the Noum were piled up like a mountain, in an abandoned hut west of the Golden Plains, a priest who was using black magic while standing up abruptly.

“Damn it!”

He threw the bronze cup he was holding hard. Aargh! One black magician was hit by it and collapsed.

It was impossible to distinguish whether the blood that pooled heavily around him was from the bronze cup or the black magician’s own blood.

“What’s the matter, Priest?”

“I can’t see the future in the prophecy book. Something is strange. Things are going wrong.”

“That can’t be, Priest.”

“Are you saying you can’t believe my words?”

“I don’t mean I can’t believe your words, Priest. Aren’t you the reincarnation of Karzhan, the first black magician? You are a very great being. I’m just….”

“I’m telling you things are going wrong. It’s a variable. A variable has appeared!”

Nothing was working out.

From corrupting the holy sword, things started to go awry, and he couldn’t properly destroy the ether of water or the ether of fire.

Black fog began to seep out around the angry priest and started attacking the black magicians one by one.

The low-ranking black magicians tried to calmly accept the death bestowed by the priest, but in the end, they met their end while screaming in agony.

As the priest couldn’t come to his senses, the surrounding black magicians also carefully observed.

The bishop gnashed his teeth and sent all the black magicians out of the hut.

Left alone with the priest, the bishop grabbed his cheeks and chanted in a low voice.

The black fog ate away at the bishop’s skin as well, but he himself didn’t pay much attention to it.

“Get a hold of yourself, Cheyren Steward.”

“….”

“Do you think I let you live just to hear this kind of bullshit?”

The bishop slowly lowered the hood the priest was wearing. Under the bright red hair, decadent features were revealed.

“When the prophecy was made that a red-haired royal would destroy the world, you were immediately abandoned by your family. Have you forgotten that anger?”

It was just as he said.

Prince Cheyren Steward, born from the womb of a lowly maid, was abandoned in a forest teeming with beasts because of his red hair color.

And the royal family erased all records of Cheyren Steward.

All of this happened when he was only 8 years old.

Originally, the coachman who took him there should have disposed of him, but the Red Eagles couldn’t let their messiah die.

〈You are the reincarnation of Lord Karzhan mentioned in the prophecy book.〉

The one who took him in and raised him was none other than the bishop.

Although he maintained his youth through black magic, his actual age was close to middle age.

The bishop gave Cheyren a new name and transformed his face with black magic.

Chad Buto.

That was the new identity he gained.

And he became the priest of the Red Eagles and walked this path to gain the power of demons.

He thoroughly trampled on others to rise to the top, becoming stronger than anyone else so that he would never be abandoned again.

“I will become the strongest.”

As Chad muttered, the bishop embraced him as if praising him.

“That’s right, noble Cheyren.”

“I won’t be abandoned a second time. No one can abandon me.”

“Of course. Everything will be perfect as stated in the prophecy book.”

“I will become the master of this world.”

“My, if you say such things… The Black Sage will be angered.”

The bishop clicked his tongue and released his arms that were holding him.

Then he slapped the priest’s cheek hard enough to make a cracking sound. The bishop’s long nails left a wound on the priest’s noble face.

“We are the servants of the Black Sage, Cheyren. We must serve the one who is no different from the Creator, not put him under our feet.”

The bishop brought a yellow elixir left on the table and carefully rubbed it on the priest’s cheek, pouring it with devotion.

It was a golden elixir that Fritz had made before he died, but failed. However, the effect was quite good, and the wound disappeared as if washed away.

“You must strive to allow the Black Sage to reincarnate in this world again. Then he will give us the world. Do you understand?”

“…Yes.”

“Are you ready to become the great priest again now?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The bishop knelt at Chad’s feet again with an ecstatic expression.

“Then what should we do now, Priest?”

Looking down at the bishop like that, as if in revenge for the slap earlier, Chad stepped on her thigh and parted his lips.

“We must thoroughly pollute the Golden Plains and plunge the empire into chaos. The land that has lost the seed of life will easily collapse, and the seal will also weaken.”

“Too splendid.”

The bishop smiled as if she couldn’t feel the pain in her skinned thigh.

Dissatisfied with that, Chad clenched his lower jaw and put strength into his leg.

Only when a faint moan leaked out from below did a satisfied smile flow out.

“And we will bring down Matian Wiegratz, who is praised as a hero. We will thoroughly eliminate the obstacles that will stand in our way.”

In the center of the empire, where the Balt River runs through. Here, there was a large plain that accounted for more than half of the empire’s wheat production.

Among them, the territory of the Noum tribe’s chief, the Nouman Count family, was also called the Golden Plains as it showed outstanding crop yields every year.

Since the founding of the empire, there were only a handful of times when the plowing of the Nouman territory stopped.

There are records that even when the Demon War broke out, the Nouman Count family of that generation tapped the earth with a wooden hammer to maintain fertile land.

An unprecedented incident occurred in such a land.

Pollution occurred in Lake Kuhala, one of the water sources of the Golden Plains.

“According to the imperial investigation team, the Red Eagles amplified black magic with a magic amplifier to contaminate the reservoir. There’s not much difference from the information we know.”

Bolton, who entered the tent, reported the circumstances to Matian, who was lying on a makeshift bed.

Currently, the student council was stationed at the front line as soon as they arrived at the Golden Plains and were rolling around frantically.

“Why did they target Lake Kuhala first, not the ‘seed of life’ imbued with the ether of the earth?”

Matian muttered while receiving treatment from a priest. The starting point of the pollution was the reservoir that resembled Rukna’s eyes.

So, as soon as Matian saw the blackened reservoir, he frantically wielded his sword.

As if Rukna’s eyes had been tainted. Because he had an anxious thought that she would end up just like that.

From the black cracks inside the reservoir, tentacled slimes were constantly rising to the ground.

A magic beast called ‘Jellyfish’ because its unique appearance resembled a jellyfish.

It secreted a sticky acidic liquid from its epidermis and wrapped its prey with tentacles, tearing them apart and swallowing them like a maw.

The body of the Jellyfish was translucent, so the process of the torn prey being digested was revealed without filtering.

The Noums, who watched the horrible deaths of their families and comrades, were quickly defeated, soaked in fear and unable to regroup their ranks.

“That too, and it’s also strange that they didn’t request troops from the academy until the situation became this serious.”

“That’s probably because of Aaron.”

Matian glanced at the shattered chair shoved in the corner of the tent.

Aaron, who had been showing signs of anxiety since coming to his hometown, finally smashed a chair with a hammer and deserted the camp.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Earlier, I absorbed the black magic with my body while destroying the magic amplifier, that’s why.”

“Funny. You went berserk like someone whose sanctuary was invaded. If you had done it in moderation, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“….”

“Did you have some hidden memories in that reservoir? Why did you overdo it so much?”

“…I received treatment, so I’ll be fine soon.”

It wasn’t memories, but because of Rukna, but Matian didn’t bother to explain.

He nodded to the female priest to indicate that the treatment was enough for now and sat up.

“Umm.”

The priestess reluctantly removed her hand that was blowing holy power into Matian’s chest and blushed her cheeks.