Never Die Villain

"...Excuse me?"

"Because you left the department."

Gustav’s voice came out harsher than before.

"After you transferred, Charles started getting targeted constantly. Not the occasional shit we were already used to. I mean every fucking day."

"...."

Ilya lowered the cigarette from his mouth.

"What does that have to do with me?"

Gustav looked at him as if he couldn’t believe he actually had to explain it.

"You seriously never noticed?"

"Noticed what?"

"Why do you think they never went too far with us before?" Gustav asked. "We were already getting treated like shit last semester. People talked behind our backs, fucked with our stuff, and picked fights whenever they thought they could get away with it. But somehow, nobody ever crossed the line. Nobody beat the shit out of us. Nobody did anything bad enough that we couldn’t laugh about it later."

"...."

"That was because of you."

"Me?"

"You’re Ilya fucking Belozersky." Gustav pointed at him. "You could’ve been the biggest failure in the entire Knight Department, and it wouldn’t have mattered. You’re still the Grand Duke’s son. Nobody wanted to find out what would happen if they seriously hurt one of the people you hung around with, and you decided to make it your problem."

"...."

"We knew that, Ilya. They knew that. Fuck, practically everyone knew that except you."

The cigarette remained between Ilya’s fingers as Gustav continued.

"Then you transferred to the Magic Department, and suddenly you weren’t around anymore. Those bastards realized it too, and once they figured out there wasn’t a Belozersky sitting with the others anymore, they started seeing how much they could get away with."

"...."

"And Charles... they went after him the hardest." Gustav looked away. "At first, it was the same shit as before. Then they started taking his money, destroying his equipment, cornering him after training, beating him when nobody was around. Every time nothing happened to them, they pushed it further."

"And none of you told me?"

"I didn’t even know how bad it was at first." Gustav shook his head. "I’m in the Magic Department, remember? I’d only see Charles and the others whenever we all met up at our usual spot, and whenever I did, he acted like everything was fine."

Ilya fell silent.

"The others knew he was getting picked on, but Charles kept downplaying it. Said he could handle it, told everyone not to make a big deal out of it, and whenever we were all hanging out, he was still the same annoying bastard making jokes and smoking with us."

Gustav rubbed his face.

"Then he started showing up less. When he did come, he’d have some excuse for the bruises or why he looked like shit."

"...."

"I should’ve fucking noticed."

"...How long?"

"Since the semester started. Maybe even a little before that, I don’t know." Gustav lowered his head. "But once you weren’t around the Knight Department anymore, and then stopped showing up at our usual spot because of whatever the fuck you’ve been busy with lately, it got worse fast."

Ilya couldn’t argue with that. Between everything that had happened in the North, his transfer, Vera, and his own training, he had barely seen any of them recently, enough that he hadn’t even known what was happening to someone he considered a friend.

"And today he..."

"Yeah."

Gustav took a long drag from his cigarette, but when he lowered it again, Ilya noticed the slight tremble in his hand. Gustav stared at the ground for several seconds, struggling to get the next words out.

"...He couldn’t take it anymore."

"...."

Was he to blame?

The guilt was certainly there, and after hearing everything from Gustav, it was difficult not to wonder whether things might have turned out differently if he had simply shown up more often.

He hadn’t even needed to return to the Knight Department every day. Perhaps just sitting with them at their usual spot once or twice a week would have been enough for people to realize that Ilya Belozersky was still very much part of that group.

At the same time, it wasn’t as though Ilya had stopped seeing them on purpose.

Every spare moment he had was spent studying magic, and unlike most of the students around him, he couldn’t afford to take his time with it.

They had spent years building up the fundamentals that Ilya was now desperately trying to learn in months, and if he allowed himself to fall behind, then every subject built upon those fundamentals would only become harder to understand.

If that happened, attending lectures wouldn’t mean much when he couldn’t even follow what the professors were talking about.

His progress would slow, the gap between himself and everyone who had studied magic since childhood would only grow wider, and the time he had already spent catching up would amount to very little.

More importantly, Ilya didn’t have the luxury of learning at an ordinary pace.

There was a deadline hanging over him.

Niflheim had only continued to worsen, and the strands of white appearing in his hair were proof enough that whatever was happening to him had no intention of patiently waiting until he finished his education.

If Ilya couldn’t understand his own magic and find some way to control it before that deadline arrived, then sooner or later, Niflheim would claim him completely.

That was why everything else had gradually been pushed aside.

Magic when he woke up. Magic during class. Magic after class. Magic when he returned home, when he trained, when he read before bed, and sometimes even when he should have been sleeping.

It wasn’t that Ilya had wanted to cut ties with Charles, Gustav, or any of the others.

He simply hadn’t realized that while magic had consumed almost every part of his life, the lives of the people around him had continued moving without him.

And now one of them was dead.

"Then... Angela." Ilya paused as another name came to mind. "I haven’t seen her either. Where is she?"

Gustav turned toward him, and the look on his face immediately made Ilya uncomfortable.

"She dropped out, dude. First week of the semester."

"...."

"She isn’t at the academy anymore."

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