Chapter 3: Lone Trail
The following day, Vera never arrived at their meeting place.
"...."
At first, Ilya assumed she had merely been delayed by her work, as she was, after all, a teaching assistant with responsibilities of her own.
However, even after waiting for nearly an hour, there was still no sign of her, forcing him to accept that she probably wasn’t coming.
As he waited, Ilya found himself thinking back to their conversation the previous day.
Now that he considered it more carefully, Vera wasn’t anyone he recognized from the original novel, at least not from what he could remember.
Then again, it had already been sixteen years since his reincarnation, and he had only read ’Why Is the Heroine Interested in Everyone Except Me?’ once in his previous life.
It would be ridiculous for him to remember every supporting character, let alone every teaching assistant who might have appeared for only a few Chapters, after so many years.
Concluding that Vera simply wasn’t going to appear that day, Ilya decided there was little point in continuing to wait.
Since he had unexpectedly found himself with free time, he made his way toward the academy library instead, hoping that if Vera wasn’t around to answer his questions, perhaps the books could.
As Ilya reached toward the book he had been searching for, another hand extended from the opposite side of the bookshelf and grasped it at almost the exact same moment.
"...."
"...."
The two paused, separated only by the shelf between them, before pulling their hands back.
Curious, Ilya shifted his gaze through the gap between the books, only to find a young man with cyan-blue hair already looking back at him.
"Oh, hello."
The man greeted him with an easy smile.
Ilya remained silent for a moment before giving a polite nod in return.
Because standing on the other side of the shelf was none other than Siegfried Tobias Bismarck, the Crown Prince of the Velenreich Empire and, more importantly, the protagonist of this world.
"Wait... You’re... Ilya?"
"It’s been a while, Your Highness."
"My, it really has been. How many years has it been now? Since the Winter Solstice Banquet, wasn’t it? Four years, if I remember correctly."
"I believe so."
The Winter Solstice Banquet was one of the Empire’s grandest annual gatherings, held every year within the Imperial Palace to celebrate the end of the year and strengthen ties among the Empire’s most influential noble houses.
Attendance was practically mandatory for families of ducal rank, which naturally meant House Bismarck and House Belozersky crossed paths there on more than one occasion.
Although Ilya and Siegfried had never been close, they had been introduced to one another enough times during childhood that forgetting each other’s faces would have been stranger than remembering them.
Siegfried closed the book in his hand before stepping around the bookshelf.
Compared to the image Ilya remembered from the novel, the Crown Prince still had the same approachable demeanor that allowed him to speak comfortably with nobles regardless of status.
It was difficult to believe this was the man destined to stand at the center of countless political storms in the years to come.
"Do you need this book?" Siegfried asked. "You can have it. I was only browsing this section to see what it had."
"No, if Your Highness needs it, then I couldn’t possibly—"
"It’s fine, it’s fine," Siegfried said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I already found what I came here for."
"Ah... then, if I may."
"Of course. It’s a pleasant surprise running into a familiar face after all these years."
With that, the Crown Prince gave him a casual nod before turning around and making his way back toward the reading tables deeper within the library.
Having found the books he was looking for, Ilya began searching for an empty place to read.
His gaze wandered across the library until it landed on the table where Siegfried had returned, surrounded by several students around their age who appeared to be studying together.
Among them, unsurprisingly, was Elise.
Since both of them belonged to the Magic Department, it was only natural that they had become acquainted.
On top of that, Élise herself hailed from one of the Empire’s great ducal houses, making interactions with the Crown Prince practically unavoidable.
In the original novel, the two had already been close long before their romance truly began, so seeing them together now wasn’t particularly surprising.
Elise happened to glance up from her book, her eyes briefly meeting Ilya’s from across the library.
"...."
"...."
For the briefest of moments, concern flashed across Elise’s face.
Almost immediately afterward, however, she looked away and resumed chatting with the people at her table as though she had never noticed him in the first place.
Whatever concern she had shown vanished so naturally that no one around her would have suspected anything.
"...."
Ilya simply looked away as well and took a seat at an empty table several rows away.
He neither greeted her nor expected her to greet him. After all, he had already grown accustomed to it.
It was exactly like Elise.
Behind closed doors, she would scold him, worry about his injuries, and insist on checking whether he was eating properly, yet the moment other people were around, she became nothing more than another distant acquaintance, acting as though they barely knew each other.
Perhaps she feared the rumors and wished to protect her own spotless reputation, or perhaps she simply didn’t want people associating her with him.
Regardless of the reason, Ilya didn’t care.
"Let’s see here..."
Ilya placed the thick volume onto the table before flipping through its pages, his eyes scanning the table of contents one entry after another.
Fortunately, the book had been meticulously organized, with every documented case sorted according to the nature of the Domain involved, allowing him to find the section he needed without much difficulty.
After locating the appropriate page number, he turned directly to it and began reading.
[The Archives of Fallen Wizards: A Collection of Recorded Cases and Domain Analyses]
[Case No. 117 - The Sky That Never Reached the Ground]
[Classification: Fallen Wizard]
[Domain Type: Sky]
[Status: Deceased]
[The subject possessed a Domain that manifested as an endless blue sky without horizon or boundary.
Early observations described the Domain as tranquil and expansive, exhibiting no hostile properties toward either the subject or nearby observers.
However, following the subject’s transition into a Fallen Wizard, the Domain underwent a complete distortion.
The subject repeatedly reported the sensation of continuously falling through the sky despite remaining physically stationary.
At first, the symptoms were limited to persistent dizziness, loss of balance, and severe spatial disorientation.
However, within three months, the subject became incapable of distinguishing between upward and downward orientation, often falling while attempting to walk because, according to them, they perceived the ground as the sky itself.
As the distortion progressed, the body’s condition began conforming to the subject’s perception rather than physical reality.
Physicians documented symptoms resembling prolonged exposure to extreme atmospheric pressure despite the absence of any environmental abnormalities.
The subject suffered repeated ruptures of the eardrums, extensive internal hemorrhaging, burst capillaries throughout the body, and catastrophic damage to multiple internal organs without any visible external trauma.
During the final stages, the subject repeatedly screamed that they were "falling faster" moments before suddenly collapsing.
Death was officially attributed to catastrophic internal trauma caused by overwhelming pressure, though no known spell or environmental phenomenon could account for the injuries.
The investigation ultimately concluded that the subject’s body had succumbed to the laws of their own distorted Domain rather than the laws of reality.]
"Yikes."
Ilya rested his chin against his hand as he reread the final paragraph.
Slowly, he turned the page, hoping that somewhere among the countless documented tragedies, there might exist even a single case that ended differently.
"...."
But there was none.
Case after case ended the same way.
Some Fallen Wizards had immediately sought treatment the very day they noticed something was wrong, while others had been taken into the custody of the Imperial Magic Association before their symptoms had even progressed.
Yet despite every attempt at treatment, not a single one survived, with none of the documented cases lasting longer than a year after the onset of their Fall.
From Ilya’s perspective, the Association seemed to regard Falling as though it were an incurable disease.
The longer Ilya read, however, the more disconnected he felt from the people described within those records.
Every single wizard documented in the archives had followed the same path.
They studied magic from childhood, spent years refining their understanding of mana, eventually constructed their Domain, and only then, after some overwhelming trauma, unbearable pressure, or life-altering realization, did that Domain distort alongside their worldview.
His case was nothing like theirs.
He had never attended a magic academy as a child.
He had never formally learned spellcraft, researched magical theory, or spent years cultivating a Domain through disciplined practice.
In fact, until yesterday, he hadn’t even known that the frozen world surrounding him was a Domain in the first place.
"So... I started at the finish line?"
If every documented Fallen Wizard had first become a proper wizard before eventually falling, then where exactly did that leave someone like him?
Someone who had somehow manifested a fully formed Domain without ever taking the first step down the path of magic, only to discover afterward that the Domain itself was already trying to kill him.
No matter how many pages he turned, Ilya couldn’t find a single case that resembled his own.
"Excuse me, student."
Ilya slowly looked up from the book.
Standing beside his table was the elderly librarian, glaring at him with an expression that clearly suggested this wasn’t the first time he had caught someone breaking the library’s rules.
"This is a no-smoking area."
Following the librarian’s gaze, Ilya lowered his eyes to his own hand.
A lit cigarette was comfortably between his fingertips.
"...."
"...."
His eyes alternated from the cigarette back to the librarian before returning to the cigarette once more.
"Ah, shit. I completely forgot."
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