Novel Full Chapter 264: Karina Maeril [2]
Chapter 264: Karina Maeril [2]
“What if I try to free everyone this way, Professor? I know it won’t restore the flow of time. But if more minds are able to think together, perhaps we can find a way out of this, somehow.”
Vanitas shook his head.
“It won’t work if they can’t reciprocate,” he said. “I was only able to move because I was already conscious when it happened.”
“I see,” Karina said with a smile. “So this only happened because you’re Vanitas Astrea.”
“Precisely because I am Vanitas Astrea.”
Truthfully, Vanitas himself did not know the exact reason he remained conscious. He had suspicions, nothing more.
Perhaps it was the wind barrier maintaining a constant dialogue with the laws of the domain.
Perhaps it was his body’s unnatural affinity with spirits.
Or perhaps, once again, Abyss had intervened in ways he could neither see nor confirm.
But that was all they were.
Conjectures without proof.
“Also, stop calling me Professor. I’m not a professor anymore.”
“You called me Assistant Professor when I’m not even working for you anymore.”
Vanitas sighed and shook his head, turning his gaze toward the frozen Iron Lotus looming in the distance.
“Keep calling me that…” Karina said suddenly. “And let me call you Professor… just like the old times…”
“I didn’t take you for someone to get sentimental, Karina.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s nothing to be sorry about—”
“I’m sorry for never believing you back then.”
Silence followed.
Vanitas closed his eyes.
In truth, he had wanted to leave Karina alone. He wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
Whatever grievances she once held against him, whatever suspicions or accusations she had thrown his way, he no longer cared.
He hadn’t expected her to change either. Not when he himself had done nothing to prompt it. Not when he had already moved on.
And yet, perhaps that was simply how life worked.
Sometimes, misunderstandings did not need to be confronted head-on. They did not need arguments, explanations, or vindication.
Sometimes, all they needed was time.
Time to let anger cool.
Time to let wounds scab over.
Time to allow people to finally look back without the concepts of emotion clouding their judgment.
Like heat dissipating on its own, leaving behind a space quiet enough for a civil conversation to exist.
“I did kill him, Karina.”
“I know.”
“It was an act of self-defense. And I will never apologize for it.”
“It’s okay.”
Karina looked at him longer than she should have, to the point it made him uncomfortable. The kind of eyes where there was thought in it, and something closer to longing, an insistence she did not bother to hide.
That face of hers, so painfully familiar, the one that mirrored Kim Minjeong’s features, was still something he had not come to terms with, and perhaps, never will.
“Seems like you’ve figured things out on your own.”
“Not really.”
“Hm?”
“I’m somewhere in the middle, you could say.”
Vanitas let out a sigh. “Whatever conclusion you reach, this is all I can tell you. Your father was no man of importance. An irrelevant man who met a dog’s death after biting off more than he could chew.”
“It’s okay.”
“….”
“Because you never meant to harm me in the end, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You knew who I was before we even met that day, back at the University Tower. Didn’t you, Professor?”
“….”
That was right.
At the time, he had not realized it. But as more memories surfaced, the picture became clearer.
Vanitas Astrea was known for driving assistants away. And in truth, he had never wanted assistants in the first place. Every single one had been assigned to him without his consent.
Except one.
Karina Maeril was his first and last personal choice.
And the reason had been far simpler than anyone would expect.
——Well, I don’t know why Karina wanted you to see me. But may I ask you for a favor, Vanitas?
Beatrice Maeril, Karina’s mother. She had once been Vanitas’s professor during his academy days, back when he was nothing more than a sharp-tongued teenager who needed to be set straight.
One of the few genuine adults who had looked after him closely, knowing all too well how strained his relationship with his father had been.
——She’s walking down the same path as me. But I want her to be better. Not to settle as an academy professor, but to soar to heights I could never reach.
——And what do you want me to do?
——Please, provide a letter of recommendation for her… I know I’m asking for a lot, but…
——Alright.
“….”
“It really was you,” Karina said, letting out a defeated laugh. “Aw, man. I thought I was chosen because I was special.”
Vanitas did not look at her as he answered.
“There’s no such thing as meritocracy in Aetherion.”
The words were honest in a way that left no room for comfort. In Aetherion, people were not chosen because they shone the brightest.
They were chosen because someone higher up decided they were useful.
Karina stared ahead, absorbing that truth in silence.
After a moment, her gaze turned back to the Iron Lotus.
“So,” she began, “how should we deal with that thing, Professor?”
“You’re the time expert here, Assistant Professor Maeril,” he replied. “Can you deal with something encased in time?”
Karina sighed and shook her head.
“No. They’re as solid as statues,” she said. “When time is frozen, so are life and death. Life stops, and death stops with it. If it were that simple, I would’ve been the greatest Bundesritter navyman by now.”
“Useless.”
“….”
Karina let out a sigh, a bitter smile tugging at her lips. Vanitas’s coldness toward her was justified after everything she had done. And more than that, he had been dragged into this again.
It was already surprising how calm he remained, even knowing there was no guarantee the world would ever start moving again.
“Your hands.”
Vanitas glanced down.
Karina’s fingers had begun to pale into a deathly blue color, with cracks spreading across her skin. The moment she noticed, she quickly tucked her hands behind her back, as if hiding them would make the problem disappear.
“It’s nothing,” she said with a smile. “Forget what you saw—Ueh?”
Before she could finish, Vanitas grabbed her shoulder. His hand moved like a serpent, tracing her collarbone, her neck, her face, then her forehead, as if confirming something piece by piece.
“You’re freezing cold.”
“Yeah. Haha… It’s pretty cold,” Karina replied weakly. “I’m surprised you’re acclimated to it much better than I am, Professor. Haha…”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“…Huh?”
“There’s no temperature,” Vanitas said. “Neither cold nor warm. Just a dull sensation.”
Karina’s eyes widened. “…That can’t be.”
It couldn’t be. All this time, Karina had been so cold she was barely holding herself together.
Vanitas met her gaze.
“I thought it was strange a spell that goes beyond Sovereign-class, yet shows no backlash.”
“….”
“But Karina, this world you froze… it’s freezing you along with it.”
“….”
Everything followed rules. Magic was no exception. There had never been a spell so overwhelmingly powerful yet would spare its caster.
Power always demanded payment, whether immediate or delayed, whether obvious or not. There were no miracles without cost, only debts yet to be collected.
And this was the price she had to pay, sustaining it, and being consumed by it at the same time.
And slowly, inexorably, the cold that had claimed the world would claim her as well.
Karina began panicking.
“Ah—”
“It’s fine,” Vanitas said. “I won’t let you die.”
“Why…” Her voice shook. “Even after—”
“If you die, there’s no guarantee time will continue. Then what? I’ll be stuck here for God knows how long. Take responsibility, you useless excuse for an assistant.”
“….”
Karina was stunned beyond words by the sheer bluntness of it. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
The Professor had not changed at all.
Even now, even after everything, he was the same sharp-tongued, infuriating man who refused to offer comfort in any conventional way.
His words were cruel on the surface and mercilessly pragmatic, yet Karina understood them better than anyone.
This was how he reassured people. Not with promises, but with certainty and action.
With the confident guarantee that things would be fixed, no matter the cost.
And somehow, that was enough.
In a world that had been halted, Vanitas Astrea alone remained unmoving in a different sense, refusing to bend to the constant the world called fate, even when time itself had come to a standstill.
“Professor, I—Ukh!”
Just as Karina took a step forward, the air currents shifted.
Thud!
The temperature dropped to an astronomical low. Karina lost her footing and collapsed, her body curling inward as she desperately tried to preserve what little warmth remained.
Her breath came out in shallow gasps as she forced herself to look up.
Vanitas was already moving, his gaze sweeping the frozen expanse with sharp urgency as ice crept outward, beginning to entomb the space around them. Frost climbed the surfaces in jagged veins, sealing the world shut piece by piece.
Unlike her, he showed no signs of freezing.
“It hurts…”
The cracks along Karina’s arm spread slowly outward as the ice entombed everything, before shattering.
Crackle——!
The unbearable cold inside Karina’s body vanished all at once. The pressure lifted so suddenly that she gasped, blinking hard as sensation rushed back into her limbs.
Her vision remained blurred as she struggled to piece together her surroundings.
“What is this?” Vanitas asked. “Did we get transported?”
Through the haze, Karina finally managed to focus.
They were inside a room.
Not just any room.
A familiar one.
Karina slowly rose, steadying herself as Vanitas offered his hand. She accepted it without a word, then pulled away and began to walk.
Step by step, she moved through the room. Her eyes traced the walls, the furniture, and the small details she knew by heart. Every corner reminded her of the simple days.
This place had not changed.
“This place is…”
Or perhaps it was she who had.
“The house I lived in with my father.”