The Return Of The Exiled Villain

”Why do you look happy?” Ronan asked suspiciously as his form returned back to normal, the horns on his head dissipating along with the draconic scales.

”...I don’t look particularly happy.”

”You do... just like when you’re hanging around your little girlfriend. You always have that ’happy’ expression...” he pressed on, his eyes narrowing slighly.

”And you also seemed strangely delighted when I revealed this transformation of mine, as if you were awaiting for it.”

His sharpened even further almost to the point of blinking.

’...’

And yet, despite his suspicion, Gray remained extremely calm, as if everything Ronan had said was merely false.

”You done yet?” he asked, letting out a bored sigh.

”MHMNNN...”

He continued eyeing Gray for fifteen more seconds before finally giving up on his suspicions, and suddenly rubbed his belly.

”Damn... I’m starved! This transformation must consume a lot of stamina or something...”

’That’s normal. Dragon were known for their enormous apetite,’ Gray added inwardly before heading out.

”I’ll be going now, dumbass,” he waved his hand.

”YOU’REE THE DUMBASS!!!” Ronan shouted fervently, looking at Gray’s back.

His eyes were still narrowed as if he had suddenly gained some kind of enlightenment, and was actually analyising Gray.

But just after Gray disappeared from his view, he frowned slighly as he couldn’t feel Gray’s mana anymore.

’...Were my thoughts about him wrong?’ he frowned deeply.

At the same moment, Gray went back to his dormroom, and dressed himself a bit more nicely before heading towards the academy’s entrace.

This was the place he was going to meet up with Maelis.

It had passed a little over thirty minutes after he said goodbye to her during class, so he just needed to wait for another half-an-hour.

It was just basic etiquette.

He had been waiting twelve minutes when he felt her presence. By presence, it mean Maelis’s unique type of mana that approached from the direction of the dormitory wing.

’...She’s finally here.’

He turned his head, and saw her coming through the academy gate and the afternoon light caught her immediately.

She had changed her clothes for obvious reasons.

The academy uniform was gone, replaced by a deep charcoal outer robe with subtle silver threading along the collar and cuffs that caught the light at certain angles and disappeared at others.

Her dark hair was down and slightly arranged, not styled elaborately but with the specific intentionality of someone who had made one deliberate choice and stopped before it became messy.

She looked, in the particular understated way that expensive things looked, effortlessly composed.

She reached him and stopped, looking all over him, curling up her lips into a satisfied smile because Gray had made an effort to dress himself up.

”You dressed up,” she smiled brighly, looking up at him with wry smile.

”Slightly,” he nodded

Her eyes sparkled up instantly before instantly latching on to his arm with the same happy grin.

”Let’s go!!” she excitedly exclaimed as she led him on throught the main street of the city.

The people around instantly looked at them, and felt a hint of envy. They truly looked like the perfect couple, just by how well they matched each other.

The first place she took him to wasn’t the vendor.

It was a tea house built into the interior of what had once been a mana crystal depository, its walls still lined with the original containment lattices that now served purely aesthetic purposes, filling the interior with a soft luminescence that changed between warm gold and pale blue depending on which section of the room you were sitting in.

The tables were spaced far enough apart that conversation didn’t carry.

The tea itself arrived in small stone vessels that maintained temperature through passive inscription work, and the menu, which Maelis ordered from without consulting him, contained things that didn’t appear in the academy cafeteria or any of the standard city establishments Gray had passed through.

A spirit-bloom infusion that carried a faint mana density detectable even without actively sensing for it.

Crystallized honey from bees cultivated in high-altitude mana-rich environments, served alongside thin wafers of something that dissolved before it fully reached the back of the tongue.

Gray looked at the spread.

Then at Maelis, who was watching him with her chin resting lightly on two fingers, her elbow on the table, her expression carrying that particular warmth she kept exclusively for him.

”I didn’t expect the city to have a place like this. I thought that I had explored this city fairly well, but it seems that I didn’t,” Gray commented, looking around the tea house.

”Oh, yeah? I’m glad that you like it. I found this place on a whim, and really enjoyed it, so I thought of bringing you here since I’ve only been here alone a few times.”

He picked up the tea vessel.

”Why alone?”

She considered that for a moment with the ease of someone who had thought about it before and arrived at a comfortable answer.

”The people I would have brought here before didn’t deserve it,” she stated simply.

Gray looked at her over the rim of the vessel. She met his eyes without blinking, without adding anything, without walking it back.

Slip...

He drank the tea.

It was simply exceptional, with a faint mint taste that wasn’t strong or weak enough, accompanied by the faint taste of honey.

They talked for a few more minutes, enjoying the small pastries given by the waittress, before finally getting out of there.

The second place was much harder to find... somehow.

Gray even wondered how Maelis had found this place, but probably simply told some of her servants to find places like this..

And to get there... wow.

Maelis led him through three progressively narrower streets in the city’s fourth ward, past a covered market that smelled of preserved herbs and raw mana stones, through an unmarked passage between two buildings that opened unexpectedly into a small courtyard.

The courtyard contained a single structure.

Low, wide, its walls made of a dark stone that absorbed light rather than reflecting it. There was no visibile queue with a single attendant standing beside a door that was slightly too large for the building’s proportions.

The attendant recognized Maelis without being introduced to her.

Inside was a private auction house.

Not the large, theatrical variety with tiered seating and competitive bidding, but a considerably smaller space, and probably more serious.

Twelve display cases arranged in a circular layout, each one containing a single item, each item tagged with a discrete description card.

Gray parsed all of them.

He stopped at the fourth case.

The artifact inside was a bracelet.

Simple in appearance, dark metal with a single inlaid inscription line running its circumference, the kind of design that communicated its maker’s confidence through its restraint rather than its complexity.

He read the description card.

Passive defense seal with an almost limitless continuous output.

No mana input required from the wearer, and its effective threshold rated to Early Saint level impact absorption before saturation.

He looked at Maelis, and surprisingly she was already looking at him, with an almost teasing smile.

”This is above what you showed me during class,” he briefly commented.

”I know,” she nodded lightly.

”The card you showed me was bait.”

”It was an introduction,” she corrected mildly.

”To get me here.”

”To show you something worth seeing.” She stepped beside him, close enough that her shoulder was against his arm, and looked at the case with him.

”The vendor I mentioned supplies this house. I have an arrangement with him,” she paused slighly, giving him an almost teasing look,

”The bracelet is already paid for.”

Gray looked at her.

”Maelis.”

”Think of it as a gift,” she mumbled, her eyes still on the case. ”From your dear~ sister, someone who would prefer you didn’t get killed... yet.”

He held her gaze when she turned to meet it.

She didn’t look away. Didn’t soften it or reframe it or add anything that would dilute what she had just said with plausible deniability.

She simply looked at him with the usual warm look she would give him, even if she had practically tortured him during their childhood.

Gray looked back at the bracelet.

’...I’ll owe her a favor, I guess. Still... plus one more defensive treasure. And if this is the place... it’ll surely be expensive, so I might not be able to create those puppets.’

”...Thank you.”

It came out with less resistance than he expected.

Maelis turned away from the case to hide whatever moved across her face in the half second after he said it.

”Don’t mention it.”

The last place she took him to was the simplest.

A rooftop garden on the upper level of a private residence building in the fifth ward, accessible through a staircase that required a specific seal impression to open.

The garden itself was small, maintained with the kind of care that didn’t call attention to itself, low flowering plants that bloomed in colors that didn’t exist at ground level because they required the particular mana density of elevated altitude to sustain their pigment.

The city spread out below them in every direction.

Maelis sat on the low stone ledge at the garden’s edge with her legs folded beneath her, her robe settling around her, catching the last of the afternoon light.

Gray sat beside her, but not too close, just close enough to have a small comforting space between the two of them.

They didn’t talk for a while.

The city moved below them, distant and continuous and unbothered by the two people sitting above it.

”You enjoyed the tea house,” Maelis stated lighly, as if recalling the memories from two hours ago.

”It was good tea,” he praised honestly.

”High praise from you.”

”It was.”

She looked at him sidelong, the corner of her mouth carrying that small private curve.

”And the bracelet...”

”Mm.”

”It was too much.”

”It wasn’t enough,” she replied, without hesitation and without any drama.

”...What can I give you on return?” he asked after thinking for a while.

He truly didn’t have anything to give her, material wise.

At that moment, Maelis turned, and deeply looked at his face, her beautiful sapphire eyes fluttering charmingly because of the smooth wind.

”I... just want you to be with me.”