Chapter 83: Aelirya Von Eldilith

Caelus and Elysia reached the cafeteria a few minutes after the end of class.

Mira sped ahead and opened the doors for them before stepping aside.

The cafeteria was already crowded.

Conversation filled the hall from every direction, layered beneath the constant clicking of utensils against plates and the occasional scrape of a chair across the floor. Students moved between tables with trays in their hands while servants worked behind long counters at the far end of the room.

As Caelus and Elysia entered, the noise thinned.

Conversations became quieter in their immediate vicinity, and several students turned their heads to look.

"That’s Elysia Sylvaris."

"The Archmage Astera Sylvaris’s daughter?"

"His only child."

"Isn’t he the one who developed the Fracture Relay Network?"

"She’s engaged to Caelus Vespera, isn’t she?"

"The Apex."

Caelus ignored them.

Elysia seemed equally accustomed to the attention.

They made their way toward the serving counters.

The moment Caelus approached, the servant behind the counter straightened so quickly that he nearly dropped the ladle in his hand. His hands trembled slightly as he filled the plate.

Caelus sighed.

He took the tray and moved toward an empty table.

Elysia followed and sat beside him.

Mira stopped behind Caelus.

He looked over his shoulder.

"Sit."

Mira hesitated.

"I’m fine standing, Young Master."

She looked at the chair across from him, then back at him.

Caelus stared at her.

"Mira."

She sat.

Across the cafeteria, Leon had noticed them.

He looked in their direction, then immediately turned his attention elsewhere as though he had suddenly become very interested in a completely unrelated wall.

Caelus watched him.

Leon noticed.

Their eyes met.

Leon grimaced.

After a moment of hesitation, he picked up his tray and came over.

He took the seat beside Mira without saying anything.

Caelus returned his attention to his food.

They ate in silence.

The meal was ordinary. Braised beef, rice, steamed vegetables, and a light broth.

To anyone else, it was simply cafeteria food.

To Caelus, who had survived the weekend on beef jerky, it was something close to a miracle.

He took another bite and slowed down.

It was warm. It was fresh. It had actual seasoning.

After two days of chewing dried meat while surrounded by broken training dummies, his standards had fallen far enough that the Academy kitchen had practically become a luxury restaurant.

Leon noticed his expression.

He shifted awkwardly in his seat and glanced toward Caelus.

Caelus was eating with the same composure he always carried, but there was something almost peaceful about the way he handled the food.

Leon looked down at his own plate, then back at Caelus.

He seemed to be struggling with something.

Before he could speak, the noise in the cafeteria changed again.

A different kind of silence began spreading from the entrance.

Caelus looked up.

Aelirya was walking toward them.

Her long golden hair fell smoothly over her back, catching the light as she moved. Her golden eyes remained calm, and every step carried the quiet assurance of someone who had never needed to hurry for anyone.

Whispers followed her across the cafeteria.

People moved aside without being asked.

Her presence was difficult to ignore.

There was something serene about her, something that made the people around her instinctively lower their voices. Looking at her gave the strange impression that whatever problem someone was carrying would become lighter if they remained near her.

She reached their table.

There was only one seat left.

She sat beside Leon.

Leon stiffened.

Mira froze.

Caelus looked at Aelirya for a moment.

She was beautiful.

Exceptionally so.

Then he turned back to his food.

He had more important concerns.

Lunch was getting cold.

He took another bite.

How obsessed was I with appearances when I wrote this world?

It was one thing to design characters who looked attractive in his imagination.

It was another to have all of them be attractive.

Elysia was beautiful enough to make entire rooms notice her.

Aelirya was worse.

If Lark had been dropped into this world without Caelus’s existing memories, he probably would have spent the first few minutes staring with his mouth hanging open. Models from Earth would have wept with jealousy if they had been forced to share the same air as these women, assuming they could somehow survive long enough to do it.

Caelus finished another bite.

Elysia placed her utensils down and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin.

"Lady Aelirya, it’s nice to see you again."

Aelirya gave her a small nod.

"And you, Lady Elysia."

Caelus continued eating.

Elysia glanced at him.

She nudged his side with her elbow.

Caelus swallowed and looked toward the elf.

"I greet the Elven Princess."

Aelirya’s gaze settled on him.

He nodded once and returned to his meal.

Caelus’s thoughts drifted toward the place Aelirya came from.

The elven continent lay southeast of the Draconis Empire, separated from most of the world by geography and policy. The elves heavily restricted entry into their lands, and their reverence for the World Tree was woven into nearly every part of their culture. Some considered other races a contamination to that land, while others simply regarded humans as a lesser species.

Aelirya was hardly an exception.

She had traveled far more freely than most elves and had interacted with the outside world enough to understand that reality was more complicated than the opinions held by those who had never left home.

Still, there was one thing about the elves that Caelus had always found difficult to dispute.

Their magic was superior.

Almost every elf received formal magical education, and their spell structures had been refined for generations. Their glyphs were cleaner, their mana pathways more efficient, and their control far more precise than what the average human mage could achieve.

An average elven mage could handle a human mage of the same rank with ease, and sufficiently talented elves could fight above their assigned rank without relying on brute force.

Even their spells were different.

Caelus had considered incorporating elven spell structures into his own magic more than once.

The problem was his body.

His current circuits couldn’t withstand them.

The density and precision required by higher-level elven spellcraft would place more strain on his mana pathways than they could currently endure.

He had no intention of breaking his own body simply to imitate someone else’s magic.

Perhaps later.

For now, human spell structures would have to suffice.

Aelirya remained quiet for several moments.

Then she spoke.

"The mage path is fortunate to have gained a Vespera among its ranks. I hadn’t expected one to emerge."

Caelus looked at her.

"It’s an honor."

Aelirya nodded.

The conversation should have ended there.

For her, however, it hadn’t.

She had been studying Caelus since she sat down, careful enough not to make it obvious.

Aelirya had spent most of her life learning to endure people’s eyes.

Her Sacred Affinity had made that necessary.

It wasn’t simply that she was beautiful. Her Sacred Affinity naturally exerted a subtle influence on the people around her, stirring attraction and fascination before they even realized they were being affected. The intensity differed from person to person, and the effect did not always manifest as desire. Sometimes it was admiration, sometimes curiosity, sometimes an inexplicable urge to remain close to her.

Whatever form it took, Aelirya could usually sense the influence beneath a person’s reaction.

She had lived with it for years.

She had learned to distinguish expressions.

Admiration.

Curiosity.

Envy.

Desire.

The differences were subtle.

The instinct beneath them was not.

Humans had been the worst.

They stared openly, followed her with their eyes, and invented reasons to approach her. The elves were hardly immune anymore either. Her Affinity’s influence extended beyond the boundaries of race, and with enough exposure, she had stopped expecting sincerity from anyone who looked at her for too long.

That was why she hated being watched.

It reminded her that she could never be certain whether someone genuinely liked her or simply reacted to what her Affinity had stirred within them.

She had eventually learned to accept it.

She had stopped searching for something that might not exist.

Then Caelus looked at her and continued eating.

There had been no shift in his breathing, no lingering gaze, not even the restrained fascination she had grown accustomed to seeing in people who tried to hide it.

Aelirya noticed immediately.

She had spent too many years living with her Affinity to mistake the absence of a reaction.

She looked at him again.

Nothing.

What she sensed from him was difficult to describe.

It wasn’t emptiness in the ordinary sense. Weak people could feel empty. Uncertain people could feel empty.

Caelus felt different.

There was something beneath him, somewhere deeper than mana, and she couldn’t perceive its shape. It felt like depth without form, vast and silent like the abyss, stretching farther than her senses could follow.

For an instant, the calm expression on her face nearly broke.

Something was wrong.

The sensation crawled along her spine and settled beneath her skin, raising the hairs on her arms. Every instinct she’d developed from years of living with her Affinity told her to put distance between herself and him.

She resisted.

The reaction made no sense.

Caelus was a human.

He should have been easy to read.

He should have looked at her and reacted, just as everyone else did in one way or another.

Instead, she felt like she was sitting across from an abyss that had somehow been placed inside a human body.

Aelirya forced her attention away.

She had been wrong before.

Perhaps her Affinity simply hadn’t affected him strongly enough.

Perhaps this was temporary.

Perhaps she was imagining it because she had become too accustomed to reading people.

Yet one thought refused to leave her.

There was something fundamentally different about him.

It wasn’t only this.

She remembered the reports about his magic.

A first-year human mage constructing a functional spell in a matter of days should have been ridiculous. Even among elves, very few could progress that quickly without years of preparation.

She had dismissed the rumors when she first heard them.

Now she wasn’t so certain.

Her gaze returned to him.

Caelus Vespera continued eating as though nothing in the world around him was particularly interesting.

Aelirya found herself wondering what someone genuinely thought when they looked at her, and for once, she couldn’t tell.

She lowered her eyes to her food and maintained the same serene smile she always wore.