If a devil were to actually appear... things would turn into a disaster.
The mere thought made a chill crawl down my spine.
I was about to press Clarice for answers—urgently, this time—when suddenly—
"Die...!!!"
One of the students who had been lying unconscious on the floor lurched upward with a violent scream and hurled himself at Clarice.
But it wasn’t even close to an attack.
"Guhk...!"
Clarice caught him by the neck with a single hand, as effortless as snatching a falling sheet of paper.
The male student dangled helplessly, kicking weakly as he gasped for air—his face turning red, then purple.
Before I could even move, a surge of black energy began pouring out from Clarice’s entire body.
No—flowing into the student.
"What are you—"
My words died in my throat.
Because the student suddenly convulsed.
"U—Urgh...! Ku... k!!"
It wasn’t just pain.
Something was being dragged out of him.
A faint, pure glow—almost transparent—began leaking from his chest, drawn out by Clarice’s black energy like water siphoned from a cup.
That was magical power.
His magical power.
"H-Hey, Clarice—stop! This is—"
My heart dropped.
"This is bad...!"
And in that moment, I understood—
This was no ordinary situation.
Clarice wasn’t just protecting herself.
She was harvesting magic.
At this rate, that student was going to die.
Anyone could see it—the way magical power was being forcefully ripped out of his body.
If that continued even a second longer, his life would be in serious danger.
I didn’t hesitate.
I tightened my grip on my sword and sprinted straight toward Clarice.
"Stop!"
She slowly turned her head toward me at the sound of my shout.
Her expression didn’t change—cold, almost emotionless.
"Don’t interfere," she said, raising her sword.
Before I could respond, our blades collided.
Clang!
The impact sent a sharp vibration up my arm.
Even though I had coated my sword in aura, I couldn’t overpower her.
I immediately noticed why.
A black energy was wrapped around Clarice’s sword—shimmering like oil, swirling like smoke.
At first glance it looked like aura, but the more I focused, the more wrong it felt.
This wasn’t aura.
Clarice shouldn’t even be capable of using aura to begin with.
And the "something" around her blade...
It wasn’t shaped like my aura, nor did it feel like any sword-user’s aura should.
It pulsed.
It writhed.
It felt alive.
Black magical power.
And it radiated a suffocatingly eerie energy—something cold, malicious, completely out of place in the hands of a fellow student.
I twisted my sword sharply, letting my body spin in a full circle.
The blade swept out in a wide arc, the tip slicing toward Clarice’s head.
But she simply tilted her head to the side, avoiding it with ease—almost lazily.
No surprise, really. Clarice was always fast.
Taking advantage of the brief opening, I grabbed the male student still dangling helplessly from her grip and pulled him back with me.
"Cough...! Cough! Th-thank you..."
He barely managed the words, his face pale.
Clarice watched him with a blank, unreadable expression.
No anger, no disappointment—just empty eyes.
Then she turned those eyes toward me.
"Why are you interfering with me?"
The question was so genuine it made me pause.
Is she seriously asking because she doesn’t know?
"I can’t just stand by while someone is dying," I said simply.
It wasn’t heroism.
It wasn’t justice.
I wasn’t noble enough to throw myself into danger for a stranger.
I just... acted.
Because anyone with a functioning conscience would.
And Clarice—someone who used to understand right from wrong better than most—should’ve known that too.
So why was she doing this? Why did she look so... blank?
She stared at me silently, as if trying to decipher a foreign language.
In that moment, I realized something.
Her emotions were fading.
Wearing thin.
Slipping away.
They were dying.
When we first talked, her emotions had been sharp—raw enough to cut.
But now, as she stood there, she looked at me with an expression so empty it felt colder than anger ever could.
Just moments ago, I had interrupted her.
Normally, she would’ve snapped, glared, or at least shown irritation.
But instead...
There was nothing.
No anger.
No confusion.
Not even the faintest ripple of emotion.
Just a calm, blank stare, like she was observing something she couldn’t quite comprehend.
"...So that’s what you meant by selling your soul to the devil," I murmured.
Whatever she meant by "devil," it was definitely connected to what she was now—this hollowed version of Clarice whose emotions had vanished.
Someone without emotions...
Someone losing what made them human...
That was what she had meant.
Clarice, who had been watching me silently as I tensed up, suddenly spoke.
"Let me ask you one thing."
"...Right now?"
I couldn’t help frowning.
This timing—this atmosphere—this situation... and she wanted to have a casual Q&A?
But she didn’t care about my confusion.
Her voice remained perfectly steady as she continued.
"You were talentless like me, weren’t you?"
Her eyes narrowed faintly.
"So how did you manage to manifest aura?"
For a moment, I just stared at her.
So that’s what she thought—
that I was like her.
Someone who lacked talent.
Someone who wasn’t supposed to reach aura.
The idea caught me completely off-guard.
But that was simply a misunderstanding.
What lack of talent?
Louis—I—had always possessed outstanding talent in swordsmanship.
The problem wasn’t my ability.
It was my magical power.
Louis’s life before I possessed his body had been one long spiral of frustration. He had talent, but no magical capacity to support it.
That hopeless imbalance pushed him into reckless behavior.
Now that the issue of magical power was being resolved, the talent he’d buried for so long was finally blooming—fully, explosively.
People were already saying I could reach Sword Expert level soon.
"Obviously, it’s because I’m a genius," I said with a shrug.
"...I see. So you were one of those all along."
Clarice gave a faint laugh—half amused, half resigned—and then lowered her gaze to her hand.
It was covered in calluses.
Hard-earned marks of someone who trained relentlessly, without shortcuts or blessings of talent.
The kind of hand that spoke of years of patience and grit.
"Then I don’t need to hold back," she said calmly.
"What? Wai—!"
"It’s useless."
A chilling vibration spread through the air as soon as she stepped forward.
My instincts screamed at me to dodge, and I tensed, ready to leap away—
But it was already too late.