The highest point of the Academy of Raya Lucaria was its bell tower, which rose even above the spire of the Grand Library. Standing more than 3,000 feet above sea level, it was usually shrouded in clouds and mist. On clear days, however, one could look down upon the entirety of Liurnia of the Lakes. From that height, the world seemed small enough to pick up with a single hand.
Before the Academy's internal conflicts, the bell tower had been more than its tallest building. It had also served as the central hub of a massive magical formation encompassing the surrounding area. Everyone within the formation received a mysterious telepathic influence that taught them to manipulate mental power like a sorcerer. Even a newborn infant could wield magic while inside its boundaries.
Living in such an environment for years greatly increased the Academy's chances of producing powerful sorcerers.
This was part of the ancient foundation of knowledge and power in which the Academy took such pride.
Skyl and Millicent sat side by side on the edge of the bell tower's uppermost floor. The great bell hanging above them remained silent. Perhaps if it ever rang again, it would awaken the old zombies sleeping in the Cemetery of Ash. Or perhaps its tolling would announce the Academy's return to glory.
For now, the bell tower remained dormant amid the lingering smoke of history's wars, quietly awaiting the day it would be called upon to fulfill its purpose once more.
"The examination was quite interesting. There were so many people sitting together, and nobody was arguing. Everyone was simply concentrating on their own work. They seemed like a single group, yet they were all so wary of one another. I was terribly nervous while answering the questions. It felt as though a wheel was spinning endlessly inside my head, and the whole time I was writing, I kept worrying that I would run out of time.
"Everyone was busy with their own papers, and the atmosphere felt so stifling. Whenever that many people gather in one place, all sorts of little thoughts and hidden intentions emerge. The sorcerers here are so introverted and sensitive. I wish they were a little more straightforward.
"I still prefer the wilderness. There's only the wind and my thoughts of you to keep me company. The living creatures I encounter along the road either want to kill me or happen to be merchants looking to do business. Dealing with people like that is wonderfully simple. I either kill them or trade with them peacefully. I'll probably never see them again, so there's no need to worry about what they think of me.
"Actually, I'm quite afraid of being judged by others. Whenever I think of you, their opinions seem unimportant. But what if their opinions happen to be the same as yours? What if the things they dislike about me are precisely the things you dislike as well? Other people's opinions can sometimes reveal our own shortcomings, and that's what worries me. I don't want to be constrained by society's judgment, yet at the same time, I desperately want to be accepted.
"Ah, you must think I'm being terribly pretentious. People are contradictory creatures. Even the philosophers on Earth say so. Sometimes I really miss... I miss the days when I didn't understand anything. Back then, all I wanted was to follow you around, like a little stray animal that had finally found someone to stay with. But that was terribly foolish, too. I couldn't even tell whether what I felt for you was admiration or love. I do love you, though."
Millicent sat very properly, her legs pressed together and dangling over the edge, her ankles crossed. Skyl had asked for her right hand and now held it in his palm. She supported herself with her left hand against the stonework, one shoulder raised slightly.
As she recounted every thought she had experienced during the examination, Skyl sat beside her, gently playing with the red-haired girl's long, slender fingers.
He was being ridiculously childish.
After the examination, they had escaped to the bell tower together.
Millicent had chopped up her proctor, although she had deliberately spared his life. Botari had lost an arm and been strapped to a stretcher before being carried off to the Academy's infirmary. His agonized screams had echoed down the corridors and across half the campus.
Very few people had shown him any sympathy.
Botari had brought the disaster upon himself. As a professor, he had challenged an apprentice to a duel and then lost. His reputation was utterly ruined.
Yet from Botari's perspective, there had been only one desperate course of action left: kill Skyl's companion and make him experience the same unbearable grief.
"Do you still hate him?" Skyl asked.
Millicent blinked gently, then narrowed her eyes in a smile as warm and soothing as water.
"I don't hate him. How could he possibly hurt me? How could he ever hurt your heart? I only feel sorry for him."
"Yes. If I were just an ordinary apprentice, being singled out by a professor would be an absolute catastrophe. But now, I can't bring myself to hate any mortal. They're simply too far removed from me, aren't they? My Millicent, my Millie, promise me something."
"Of course. What is it?"
Skyl gazed at Millicent in silence.
His eyes were like the Time Stone, capable of perceiving countless possible paths of fate. Every future reflected within his pupils seemed to merge into a dazzling mass of silver light, so cold and forbidding that anyone else might have been afraid to look.
Millicent held his gaze.
Within those eyes, she caught a glimpse of the future.
She saw every love story that ended in tragedy.
The love between a god and a mortal seemed destined to end in sorrow.
Millicent saw herself in one distant future, growing old and dying as a mortal.
Skyl turned her entire life into an instanced plane, then became its sole player. He repeatedly reloaded his saved progress, experiencing countless first meetings with her, countless moments of falling in love, and countless final farewells.
Skyl remembered ten thousand different expressions, gestures, and moments from her life. Millicent's memories, however, were reset every time he reloaded.
Eventually, after an immeasurable passage of time, their love became a living corpse.
Skyl sealed away the instanced plane.
He sealed it away forever.
Throughout the eternity that followed, he would occasionally glance back at that piece of his past, but the memories would no longer stir the slightest emotion within him.
And yet, as endings to love stories went, this was already the happiest one.
Millicent glimpsed a second ending.
Through her own efforts, she successfully embarked upon the path to godhood. With Skyl assisting her, she obtained divinity and endless life with remarkable ease.
Their romance came to an abrupt end.
From then on, they were simply two gods who shared a close relationship. The colors of their love gradually faded and disappeared across the endless ages.
For Millicent herself, this was the best possible outcome.
Before she could fully contemplate it, a third ending captured her attention.
As they spent more time together and Millicent continued cultivating the Shehai, her reverence for Skyl gradually overwhelmed her love for him.
She came to regard Skyl entirely as the master of her life and the owner of her soul.
She became his most loyal and humble divine attendant, her heart overflowing with sacred devotion.
As for love, it had become nothing more than an embarrassing memory of youthful passion, a period of reckless infatuation she could scarcely bear to recall.
Every love eventually died.
Some romances were carried to the grave by the passage of time, and death itself granted their love immortality.
For gods, however, eternal life transformed romance into a fleeting spark from the very beginning.
Millicent herself had spoken of dispelling Skyl's loneliness of a hundred years.
But what about a thousand years from now?
Ten thousand years?
A hundred million years?
For the first time, she truly understood why Skyl was always so lonely and sorrowful.
The man who called himself Hogwarts' Greatest Diviner had finally gained the ability to genuinely foresee the future.
And what he saw were the endings awaiting everyone, himself included.
Even so, he continued to smile.
In front of others, he was always spirited and cheerful, unfathomably mysterious, and eager to punish evil and reward good. He embodied the popular image of a benevolent white wizard.
He should have continued wandering through the mortal world like that forever, amusing himself with its countless wonders and remaining untouched by sorrow.
Until a reckless little girl, too naive to understand what she was doing, reached up and dragged the sun down from the sky.
Then she handed him a bottle of potion called love.
Even the blazing sun had its imperfections, and love had brought about its fall.
For the endless life that lay ahead, he would have to live with the scars it left behind.
Millicent began to cry.
Her voice broke into quiet sobs.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
"Shh. Don't apologize. There's something I need you to do now."
"Mm..."
"From this moment on, forget that I'm a god."
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