The Archmage Coefficient (OP Archmage/ Mage Academy/ LITRPG/ Hidden Genius)

Elric didn’t look at Arielle after she called out to him.

He kept his gaze on the dean, who stared back at him in a measured fashion. Arielle realized belatedly that there was a marked tension in the room, and she seemed to have walked into something contentious.

“Elric?” she called out again. “Are you okay?”

He finally tore his gaze away from the dean and gave Arielle a tight smile. “Yes. Everything’s fine. I just came to see how you were getting along.”

“I’m doing well.” In the spirit of study, Arielle noticed some other things about the pair. The fabric at the dean’s collar area was rumpled, his long braid twisted about, with wisps escaping. A line of blood trailed out of one nostril, which he calmly wiped, and there were also vague traces of Massa in the room, when usually it would be overpowered by the dean’s Luxa.

Something had certainly happened between the two before she walked in, likely some kind of duel.

Elric was probably mad at the dean and had attacked him with magic, which caused the dean's robe to get rumpled. Was the dean mad at Elric also?

She was about to voice the question, but then remembered what the dean had said.

Don’t ask. Just study.

Dean Octavius straightened his robe. “Do the two of you want to utilize my office for your discussion?” His voice sounded calm and welcoming despite everything.

Elric shook his head. “No.” It landed on a harder note than what he had used with Arielle, and he did not look at the dean at all as he walked to open the door, telling Ari, “Let’s go.”

Arielle glanced back at the dean, who gave her a comforting smile before she left the office with Elric.

Elric didn’t say anything as they marched down the staircase. That was normal for him. Whenever he came for her, they never spoke until they were in private.

However, this silence felt different. Heavier.

A few students crossed their paths on the way, and, as always, they made a point of bowing to Elric. In the past, Elric would have stopped to acknowledge their greeting or make small talk, but he just about managed jerky nods.

His robe billowed in the stiff wind once they got outside. He glared at one of the statues on campus, his lip curling in distaste before continuing on his journey.

Everything about him spoke to his anger.

Still, Ari had to confirm when they finally got to the shore, and he put the dome up, subduing the sounds and salty scent of the sea. “Are you mad at the dean?”

“I’m more than mad,” he said, gaze darting around, blazing. "I’m furious.”

“Oh.” She beamed. "Good."

He raised his eyebrow. “You want me to be furious?”

“No. I’m just happy that I was correct in my assumption about your current emotional state.”

He narrowed his eyes. “To be perfectly honest, I’m a little annoyed with you too.”

Her smile dropped. “With me? Why?”

“Why did you not tell me that the dean took you to the Helleron forest and that you nearly died?”

“I didn’t nearly die. I just passed out.”

“Is that supposed to make it better?”

“Yes. Passing out is undoubtedly better than dying."

“Arielle…" He closed his eyes and took several slow, deep breaths before he talked again. “I’m angry that the dean endangered you and you never told me about it. Neither did Vittoria. I had to hear it from the bastard himself.”

“Oh.” Arielle chewed the inside of her lip. Discomfort churned in her belly. She didn’t like Elric being upset and especially didn’t like it directed at her. “I was going to tell you.” Or maybe not. She had been undecided about it. “But a lot of things happened, and it slipped my mind.” It had probably slipped Vittoria’s mind too.

“The fact that you got injured so badly that you passed out didn’t cross your mind to mention after I woke up?”

"Yes, precisely." Maybe because her passing out hadn’t been from an injury, nor had it been directly the dean's fault. It had been the Drift. But she didn’t think she could tell Elric that part because of what Cornelius Draco had said about it potentially endangering him. There was also a part of her that thought maybe if he knew, he might disapprove of her search and make her stop.

She didn't know how much she could reveal safely, so she resolved to avoid talking about the Drift entirely.

She simply said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you," and hoped it would be enough.

Her words seemed to break the tension on his face.

His shoulders sagged, his expression shifting from anger to regret.

“No, I’m sorry." He walked closer to her, bending over so that he could meet her gaze. "I’m sorry I’m taking this out on you. It’s not your fault. It's the dean's. And perhaps, mine.”

Actually, it was more the Drift’s fault. And partially Arielle’s for running towards the ruins. “How is it your fault?”

“Because I trusted the wrong person,” he said. “I thought bringing you here would keep you safe, but it seems like I only put you in harm's way.”

“I don’t think the dean meant what he did in a bad way,” she said.

"Don't defend him, Arielle."

"I'm not trying to. Just mentioning that he told me his intentions were to teach me a lesson about trust.”

“He did something I specifically asked him not to do. He deliberately put you in danger.”

"Yes, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. I was naive. Now, I'm working on it.” She scratched her head. “We have weekly extra lessons, and he's teaching me how to discover other people’s true intentions "

“I don’t think you should have any more private meetings with the dean.”

“Why not? The lessons are very useful."

His eyes narrowed. “Obviously, because he can't be trusted."

Arielle pursed her lips. “Do you think so?”

“Yes. He wants something from you. I’m just not sure of his end goal."

"Oh." Another gust of wind kicked up the sand, but the dome prevented the gritty breeze from reaching them, making the air feel too still, too sober.

Perhaps that was what weighed her down, as her eyes were drawn to the grass.

She knew that the dean wasn’t entirely trustworthy, but his lessons had value. She didn’t want to stop them. She was just getting started, and she’d already learned a few things.

“I need someone to teach me the stuff that he’s teaching me right now,” she said. “Do you have anyone else in mind?”

Elric stared at her. His hand closed in a fist, and she thought she felt a tremor in the ground as he let out a noisy breath.

“I’m so sick of this.”

“Of what?”

“Of all of it. Of this damn society not simply letting you be.”

He inhaled deeply and exhaled again, then shook his head. “Is there anything else you’re supposed to tell me?”

She thought about it and nodded. “Yes. I’m working on a project, finding lost spells with Professor Valeria. We managed to figure out one of Vaelor's abyssal spells."

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"I thought you were supposed to stay away from Vacu-dominant activities.”

“Yes, but this is important.” Although she couldn’t tell him why. “Anyway, I figured out the base of one of the spells, and we managed to recreate it.”

“You discovered a Vaelor lost spell?" He gave her a quizzical look.

She nodded.

His jaw slackened. “You’ve only been here a few months.”

“Yes, but I only got the assignment last week.” She shrugged. “It took some time. Vacu is very peculiar.”

Elric stared some more.

Then he asked, “Arielle… why would you do that?”

"Because..." Because she was searching for how to access the abyss without relying on the Drift. Because she sought to save those within and possibly find the primordial disciple.

Because she felt like something was missing within her, and she wanted to figure out how to get it back.

She thought about telling him all those things, but even in her imagination, they were always followed up by even more questions. Elric liked to get to the bottom of things, and she knew she couldn't mention details without potentially giving something away. Like the dean said, she needed to think before she spoke.

So, she simply answered, “Because I wanted to.”

Something passed over his face then.

Elric's expression changed swiftly in a subtle way that she couldn't describe. He also didn't speak for several seconds, and the air got even heavier.

Finally, he hung his head and shook it. “Damn it, she might be right.”

“Who?

“I should pull you out of school,” he muttered. “Before it’s too late. Put you somewhere not even demons can find you.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

"But where would that be? Who would watch over you? Vittoria? I don’t trust her entirely either.” Elric was muttering to himself now, his gaze trained on the ground. “There's no one else. No one to protect you but me, and I’m not even doing a good job of that."

"Elric,” she said to stop his babbling. “I don’t want to leave.” She didn't want to leave school. All her friends were here, and she liked her professors too, for the most part.

"I like it here," she reiterated in case he didn't understand her the first time. "I don't want to go."

It seemed to have finally sunk in, but he didn't respond to her immediately. The seconds ticked by, punctuated by muted whooshes.

The longer the silence stretched, the more nervous Arielle got.

Was he still pondering it? Was there a chance he could take her out and put her in hiding anyway?

“Vittoria thinks that you won’t be able to hide here for long,” he said finally. “Eventually enough people will find out about what you can do, and hiding will be impossible.” He sighed. “I think she's right.”

His sigh sounded resigned. Like someone who had lost a battle, there was a kind of sorrow on his face. “Maybe I never should have brought you here in the first place.”

“No.” She hurried to reassure him. “I’m happy that you did. I want to be here, learning magic. I’m good at it.”

“Yes, of course I know that. But that endangers you as well. See how much trouble you’ve already been in since you got here. Maybe if you had stayed in Fenway, none of this would have happened."

Arielle bit her lip. She didn’t want to make things harder for Elric, and she especially didn’t want him to feel guilty. She wanted to make it better. “Do you want me to stop the research?”

As the question floated in the air, she gripped her robe and held her breath. She would hate to give up what she and Valeria were working on, but she would do it if it made Elric uncomfortable. She owed him so much, and he was her friend. She didn't like that something she was doing made him upset, and she furthermore didn't want to get him into any more trouble.

He glanced at her in silence, likely considering his options.

“You don’t want to do that, do you?”

"No,” she admitted. “But I’ll do it if you want me to.”

He kept his eyes on her, but a crooked smile appeared, albeit it drooped a little on the edges. Then he heaved a decisive sigh. "The both of us...we are very different, aren’t we?”

Arielle nodded. That much was obvious. Elric was an adult male archmage. She was a teenage female unsanctioned archmage. They were different in more ways than they were similar.

He sighed and sat on the sand, facing the sea. He gestured for Arielle to sit beside him, and she smoothed over a nice patch of sand for herself before she sat.

The waves crashed in the distance, the island of Khor settling over the horizon. The permanent overcast had stretched out towards them, and Arielle wondered if it might rain.

They had not experienced rain since she'd been here, although the weather had gotten significantly colder. She was wearing her cloaks almost all the time now. She wondered what rain on the Island would look like.

Pretty and dewy or dark and stormy?

Would they experience that tonight?

Examine the clouds. That was how her brother always predicted the rain.

Her mind had drifted so far away that by the time Elric spoke again, it took significant effort to wrangle it back.

“I think I’ve been so focused on keeping you safe that I’ve never bothered to ask you what you want,” he said.

“What I want?”

“Yes. For the future," he said. “You can do anything you want, be anything you want. So, what would you want to do, to be?”

It was her turn to take a long pause.

The question seemed simple on the surface, but it wasn’t. She had never thought that far. Even now, she focused on the day-to-day without looking at the bigger picture.

When she was younger, she’d assumed that she would either be an assassin like her sister or a warrior like her brother. When it was clear she had no talent for either of those things, she only hoped to be a reserve or learn a craft that allowed her time to herself every once in a while.

But with the discovery of her magical powers, it was as if a whole world had opened up, with shiny possibilities waiting for her.

She could be anything.

But she hadn't really explored what that 'anything' was.

She didn't know enough to choose, and didn't know about what she didn't know.

“What do you think I should be?” she asked Elric.

He shook his head. “It’s not about me." He reached over and ruffled her hair. "But if you must know, I just want you to be happy."

She smiled.

“I’m happy when I’m using magic, when I’m helping people,” she said. “I’m happy when I make friends or when I solve problems.”

“Would you like to do that on a larger scale?”

“What do you mean?”

“Vittoria has this idea.” He shook his head. “Never mind. It's too crazy.”

“I want to know. Tell me.”

He turned over his hands and picked at his palms. "She wants to train you for a hostile takeover."

“A what?"

"Your attainment of power was against the rules. Therefore, you are, by law, meant to receive an automatic mana suppression, and the High Ascendant can use that against you. But not if he's no longer making the rules."

He glanced at her.

"By unanimous council decision, we can summon the Sentinel, who can then issue a Sentinel's Challenge. This challenge could be used to oust the Ascendant and put another in his place without the need for a long-drawn-out battle that ends in one person's death. The catch is that to earn the unanimous council vote, you will have to prove yourself to be donum divinitus."

"What's that?"

"It has many meanings, but it translates to a gift of the gods," he said. "She wants to set you up as someone undoubtedly special, sent by the guardians of this earth to be a divine emissary and servant of the council and the world as a whole. Vittoria tells me that this can be gained by attaining notoriety, such that you become a uniting figure. She wants you to maintain a secret identity and use that to achieve acclaim by doing inexplicably miraculous deeds and saving people. Then you will be trained as the next High Ascendant."

"I don't think I want to be the next ascendant."

"I know. Vittoria says it might not get to that. That you can maybe use the notoriety you gain and the threat of a Sentinel's challenge to earn certain exceptions from the High Ascendant so he leaves you alone. Like a negotiation tactic."

"I see."

"Yes. But in any case, it might not work, and once a Sentinel's challenge is issued, you need to be ready, and you will need to take his place. There’s also a chance that he might discover your identity before you’re ready.”

“I don't think I want to be a High Ascendant," she says. "It seems like a lot of work.”

“Doesn’t it?” he said. "That's what I told Vittoria. You're still too young to even dream about that kind of responsibility."

Arielle nodded. She had no desire for that kind of power, and she didn't like politics either.

“But what do we do?" she asked. "How do I keep hiding while doing the things I want to do?”

Elric didn’t respond, which likely meant he didn’t have an answer.

So instead, he changed the subject. "We managed to track down and kill two of the Overlords, and have kept alive the one Vittoria had in her basement. We're using him to find the others who have retreated into the demonic realm. Gio insists on tracking them there.”

“Isn’t that extremely dangerous?”

“It is, but he’s a nutcase. And I have to go with him.”

Arielle was instantly alarmed. "Why?"

"Because it's my job," he said. "I have to keep people safe."

"Yes, but..." Arielle didn't want Elric to go to the demon realm. He had only just survived his first demon attack.

"Don't worry," he said, his smile as gentle as his head pat. "I'm tougher than I look, contrary to current events."

Arielle frowned, nursing some doubts about that.

“Get me some of Inara's blood,” she said. "Maybe there’s more information in Yseult’s diary that can help find the rest.”

"Even better. I got you Yseult's blood." He materialized a vial of dark red liquid and handed it over. "I figured that was what you wanted to ask me for in the messaging scroll, and I was able to secure this. Don’t ask how. Be careful with it though. Yseult can't use magic anymore, but I won't put it past him to ingest some kind of poison or something to induce a destructive mechanism within. He seemed far too calm watching me draw it."

Ari nodded. "I will be careful. Now that the demons have been banished, do I have to give back Vittoria's portal bird?" The thing remained with her at all times, a band around her arm that she could summon. So far, she hadn’t done it yet.

"No. Yseult may be physically powerless, but none should ever make the mistake of counting him out too early. We still have to be careful. In fact, I'd prefer it if you stayed with Vittoria during the upcoming break."

"No." Arielle was already shaking her head. "I want to go home." She missed her family and Fenway. She might not have had any friends there growing up, but she still wanted to go back.

Elric stared at her and nodded. "Then we'll try to keep you as safe as possible while you're there."

"Thank you," she said.

He reached out and held her hand, squeezing before letting go. Together, they continued to watch the crashing waves.

"The season's changing," he said. "It's going to rain a lot from now on."

Ari contemplated the weather and his words. "It's okay. I like the rain."

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