As it turns out, finding time alone with his personal servant was incredibly difficult for Mal to do.

  They were both occupied with their respective csses for most of the day. Before csses, Mal was busy with Philo, and even if he wasn't, he had no idea where to find her. He supposed he could've asked her, but that brought him onto the next issue—her duty seemed to change from day to day. Multiple times, he pnned on cornering her after school. Multiple times, he'd found out that she was moved to another duty.

  He was beginning to suspect that she was avoiding him.

  His best guess as to why was because he had ignored her concerns. From her perspective, she'd asked him to avoid doing something that would endanger both him and herself. Although it worked out for the best, it must've still been frustrating, Mal imagined.

  He was tempted to just ask her for a private meeting, but he was worried that his circle mates would overhear and get the wrong impression.

  So now, he'd come up with another pn: speak to Lusia’s supervisor and find out where she was at the current moment, not where he expected her to be.

  He rapped his knuckles against the servants' cafeteria door.

  "It's unlocked," a voice called from within.

  Mal opened it. The matron was seated on one of the cafeteria tables, a stack of papers to her right. She was currently working on a paper in front of her and noting a few things in the margins.

  From what Mal remembered, the servant lessons also included discussions on managing logistics and hiring and other miscelneous things for their master. Mal supposed that part of that learning might involve essays.

  The matron looked up at him. Her body stiffened.

  "Lord Patoal," her voice was deliberate and careful. "What can I do for you?"

  A noble in the servant quarters must've been an unusual sight. No wonder she was on edge.

  "I need the location of Lusia."

  "Lusia? Not 'your servant'?"

  "Is there a difference?"

  "... I suppose there isn't." She frowned and focused on him. "But why do you want to see her?"

  "I have something urgent to speak to her about and I've been unable to locate her."

  "How urgent? If it can wait until tomorrow, speak to her when she's carrying your textbooks."

  "It's a private conversation."

  The matron narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to seduce your servant?"

  "Why do you people keep accusing me of seducing maids?" Mal shook his head. "No, it's about something else."

  The matron looked at him for a bit longer before she stood up. "Permission to ask a question, Lord Patoal?"

  "Granted."

  "What exactly are you trying to do to my student?"

  Her instincts are spot on. She can tell that there's something off about the situation, Mal thought.

  Mal could've just lied… But he figured there was no harm in telling the truth. It was unlikely the matron would leak the information.

  "I owe Lusia a great debt," Mal said. "I've been seeking to pay it off for a long time, but she hasn't let me. And now, I took a risk that could've harmed her. I was lucky enough that my actions had no real repercussions to anyone other than myself."

  "So you want to… what, clear the air?"

  "Yes. And then hopefully finally learn what her true wish is so that I can repay her."

  The matron went silent at that. For nearly a full minute, they stood in silence, the only sound being the stale air.

  "You said that you want to know her true wish, right? Have you tried asking her?"

  "Yes, but she deflected. She told me some nonsense about needing new thread."

  "If that's the case, then you'd have better luck learning about her. From there, you might be able to make a reasonable guess as to what it is she wants."

  Mal blinked. "You're helping me?"

  "Why not? You want to do a good thing, as far as I can tell. Technically, I am a teacher at the school. I should encourage that sort of thing, shouldn't I?"

  Mal nodded slowly. It wasn't a great reason, but… he had to take his victories where he could get them, right?

  "She's at the undry area. The building behind this one. You can't miss it."

  Mal turned around and walked toward the door. He looked back and nodded at the matron once more.

  "Thank you."

  With that, the two parted.

  Mal walked up to the undry building. The sun reflected through the floating river overhead. This was the first time he was seeing it up close. A river had been torn from its natural pathway and passed through the undry area to provide for easier cleaning.

  I wonder why they don't just automate all of this? Mal thought.

  If they had the power to move an entire river through a building, then surely they had the power to simplify the washing process.

  Realistically, it wasn't that important.

  Mal opened up the door to the undry building.

  The inside had an open-air ceiling. It seemed that the only purpose of the walls was to keep students from seeing servants at work.

  Two figures were moving back and forth between a bucket of clothes and the river. They were taking the balls of clothes and putting them into the water. The water carried the clothes to a grate where the clothes were stopped.

  …Mal noted that one of the figures was somehow making the clothes dirtier every time she put them into the river stream.

  That was Lusia, alright.

  He took a closer look at the two figures. One of them was vaguely familiar—Dahlia, if he wasn't mistaken. The girl who'd been bullying Lusia not so long ago.

  Surprisingly, there was no trace of malice or coldness on Dahlia's face. Instead, the girl was talking away to Lusia, as if the two were best friends.

  Though Lusia's responses ranged from grunts to single-word affirmations or denials.

  "—But when I told her that, she told me this whole ridiculous story about how he had just been there for tea." Dahlia scoffed. "For tea! Does he think I'm stupid?"

  "Mm."

  "Those two are definitely going behind Rose's back. And the poor girl is going to be crying her eyes out, and it's going to be me who has to pick up the pieces. Honestly, the selfishness of some people."

  "Yes."

  "Although…" Dahlia's tone turned dreamy. "I suppose I don't bme Bertie. Even if he's a bit of a rake, he's definitely one of the cutest servant boys in the entire school." She sighed. "It's just a shame he can't keep it in his pants."

  "Keep what in his pants?"

  Dahlia froze. She chuckled. "Well, um, you know. That."

  "I don't know. What is this thing in his pants that you're referring to? What does it have to do with Rose and Betty?"

  Dahlia's eyes widened. "You were actually paying attention?" She shook her head. "Look, it's indecent to speak about in public—"

  "Then why were you speaking about it to me?"

  Lusia's tone was as dead as ever. It was impossible to tell if she was joking or teasing, or completely sincere.

  Of course, Mal had known her long enough to know that it was the third option. She genuinely had no idea what Dahlia was talking about.

  Deciding to save Dahlia from having to expin herself to Lusia, Mal stepped forward and coughed into his hand.

  Dahlia jumped up and looked over in his direction. Her jaw dropped and she made a quick, clumsy curtsy.

  “S—sir!” she said. "What brings you here?"

  Lusia stared at him. Her eyebrows creased by a fraction of an inch.

  On anyone else, Mal supposed that it would've been equivalent to a scowl.

  "I wanted to speak to my maid," he said.

  "Alone…?" Her cheeks turned a bright red and her eyes widened. "O-Of course! My apologies, I'll get out of your hair!"

  Dahlia scurried off to a drying rack and hid herself behind it. She poked her head out, a flush still present on her face.

  Why do I get the feeling that she's misunderstood something? Mal thought.

  It was probably nothing.

  Lusia's eyes were locked on him. Her eyebrows were still creased and her gaze had narrowed.

  "What are you doing here?" She paused. "Master."

  "I felt that I owed you an update because I went against your advice."

  "You owe me nothing. I'm nothing more than your servant."

  "Still." Mal took a deep breath. "The procedure was a success. I have obtained a kind of hypersensitivity toward mana. I can actually see it at all times."

  Lusia stiffened. “See it?”

  "Small little fkes. A little bit bigger than dust. They glow different colors depending on the alignment of the mana."

  She stepped closer to him. "At this very moment, you can see the mana in the air?"

  "I can." Mal turned in a circle, then looked back at Lusia. "It's all unaligned mana, of course. It appears as white flecks. There's concentrations over at the grates—I would think that the magic items or runes they're using to channel the river through here are probably next to those concentrated flecks."

  There was a hungry gaze in her eyes. He had noticed it before, when she'd been listening to Rom and Philo and Mal discuss whatever lesson they had learned recently. But it was only now, seeing it in this context with this much intensity, that he was able to categorize it as hunger.

  "You really want magic, don't you?" Mal asked.

  At that, the fire in her gaze disappeared. "It was just curiosity, master."

  Mal could've pushed, but he suspected that she would refuse questions. He might've been able to force an answer out of her, but such an answer gained under coercion had no guarantee of being the truth.

  He decided to attack it from a different angle, following the matron's advice.

  "Can you tell me about your past?" he asked.

  She blinked at him.

  She blinked at him again.

  "No."

  That didn't go as pnned.

  Why did she have an interest in magic? Furthermore, why didn’t she pursue an interest in magic? Even if she couldn't receive formal education, it wouldn't be too hard to read out of his textbook and practice the stuff herself—

  But she couldn't do that.

  She was in possession of a hollow core. Not only was she magicless, but she didn't even get the benefits that Mal had received.

  "Does your core ever hurt?" Mal asked.

  "No."

  That was a dead end as well.

  Mal wasn't built for this, this kind of subtle questioning, attacking a problem with subterfuge. The way he dealt with an issue was by bsting it with enough magic to turn it into nothingness.

  The two stared at each other like idiots. Mal's face was stoic on the outside, but internally he was desperately trying to find a way to continue the conversation.

  There must've been something in his expression, because Lusia tilted her head by half a degree. "Why are you asking me these questions?"

  He wanted to just tell her the truth—that he was trying to help her—but he knew full well that she would probably reject him if he gave such a reason.

  "I was curious," he said.

  "You should already know most of the details."

  "I forgot them."

  She didn't seem offended by this, surprisingly. She remained completely still, then her head reset back to a neutral position. She nodded.

  "My father used to be your father's personal man-at-arms,” she said.

  Mal sucked in a breath. She was actually opening up to him?

  “The two had made a promise on the battlefield—that if either one of them died, the other would take care of their family."

  Mal hadn't even been aware that his father was capable of emotion, so to imagine him saying such a thing felt impossible.

  Nonetheless, he didn't interrupt.

  "After the pgue swept through our vilge, my mother passed away." There wasn't the slightest waver to her tone. For all he knew, she could have been discussing the weather. “My father fell comatose a few years ter due to a… magical curse.”

  Even more emphasis on the st two words. Was this the reason for her interest in magic? Was she seeking a cure?

  “He’s still alive?” Mal asked.

  “Yes. But he’s unresponsive.” She shut her eyes. “In accordance with his promise, your father took me into his household. He deemed that the best way for me to be taken care of was for me to become a maid."

  "I would've thought he'd adopt you."

  "Such things only occur in fairytales. A low-born commoner becoming the daughter of a nobleman rarely, if ever, occurs.”

  Mal supposed that was about right. "And what about your core?"

  "Your father had me tested for magical potential. It was then discovered that I was in possession of a rare genetic disorder which made it so that my core was functionally useless," she said. "The information about my core status leaked to the rest of the staff."

  "They would've hated you. Magic is too highly valued in this country. For someone to not even be an F grade, but to just ft out have an unusable core…"

  "They detested me," she said. "Every single day, I would wake up and have to endure their stares. They looked at me as if I was less than human. At the time, I didn't understand those looks. It was only after they told me so. Repeatedly." An honest expression of confusion appeared on her face. "Even now, I still don't understand. I think I would've understood if they just ignored me. But this emotion known as hate seems alien. One of the senior maids tore my dress to shreds. Another one tried to frame me for stealing food during a famine."

  Her eyes remained steady, but her breath hitched at every incident. Her fingers twitched, and Mal got the impression that he was looking at a gss window with cracks running all along its surface, just on the verge of shattering if you so much as looked at it wrong.

  A small part of his heart twisted.

  "And nobody did anything? Nobody tried to help you?" he asked.

  "No."

  He could've done something.

  His word wasn't worth much with nobles, but with commoners, it was w. He could've told them to stop. He could've told them that he would have them executed if they continued.

  But in the first timeline, he probably didn't even know. Hell, he might've even encouraged it.

  He truly was the worst sort of scum, wasn't he?

  "But you want magic," he asked.

  "Maybe." She narrowed her eyes. "I remember the first time I saw magic. You were practicing in the courtyard. Over and over, you failed. And then, a sphere of mana." She paused. "I felt my stomach turn inside of my belly. I wanted to be able to do that, to have that power in my hands. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and you had it instead of me."

  "You were envious."

  She stared at him. “I was wrong. I said I didn't understand hate. But I'm certain that what I experienced on that day was that emotion. I hated you. No, I still hate you for what you have and I don't."

  Her words were frank and without venom.

  "Most people would make an angry face while saying something like that," Mal said.

  "It hurts my cheeks to frown so intensely. I prefer not to do it."

  The water burbled as it passed through the grates. The sound of the breeze whistled through the air.

  "Tell me," he said. "If there was a cure to your core, would you take it?"

  "Without question."

  “Even it came from me?”

  She didn’t respond.

  Not that long ago, Cassandra had mentioned that one of the great powers of witchcraft was that there were certain miracles it could perform that wizardry couldn't. The first thing she mentioned was the ability to change the core. That's what Mal had done with the Shattercore potion. She also mentioned that he would need to get his hands on Inferno essence.

  “I’m fully aware of the fact that you hate me, and that you have no reason to believe me," Mal said. "But I promise you, I'm going to find a way to fix your core."

  Her eyes widened. "What? What are you talking about?"

  "Don't you remember? In the carriage ride? I promised you a reward and you gave me some ridiculous answer about new sewing materials."

  "What are you even rewarding me for? This doesn't make any logical sense."

  "It doesn't need to."

  "How would you even accomplish such a task?" she asked.

  "Don't worry about the fine details. Don't worry about anything at all. I promise you, I'll fix this. I'll fix everything."

  She stared at him in silence.

  Mal allowed himself a small grin. He stepped back and nodded at her. "I'll see you ter, Lusia."

  She didn't respond. He turned around and exited out of the undry building. As he stepped out, he heard Dahlia scramble over to Lusia.

  "I have no idea what he said, but his words were so full of passion—!"

  Before Mal could have his mind polluted by any more nonsense, he shut the door.

  He took a few steps when he noticed a soft rustle in the bushes. He didn't look at it—if somebody was watching him or pnning to kill him, looking would trigger their pn or make them run away.

  Instead, Mal walked in the other direction and turned the corner. As soon as he did, he circled back around in order to come up from his stalker from behind.

  He turned the corner once, then peeked his head out toward where he suspected the stalker was.

  His eyes narrowed.

  Why had Hypode been hiding in the bushes?