Aria Astel Ashborne's POV—
The air in the academy garden, tucked quietly beside the female dormitories, always carried a distinct chill once the evening curfew bells finished ringing.
By ten o'clock, the usual chattering of the students—the gossip, the petty rivalries, the breathless recounting of dungeon assessments—finally died down, leaving behind a profound, heavy silence. Even the birds had long since ceased their chirping. The daytime flowers folded their petals and went to sleep, leaving the garden to the handful of nocturnal blooms that only truly appreciated the quiet, cold wash of the moonlight.
The night air felt incredibly fresh. It cleared the lungs and cooled the skin. Looking up at the moon, suspended like a silver coin in the vast expanse of the dark, you could almost stare at it for hours and forget the crushing weight of reality.
'It won't make your responsibilities any less,' I thought, my breath fogging faintly in the cool air. 'But at least it eases the mind. It untangles the thoughts so you can face the morning without suffocating on your own dread.'
I sat alone on a carved marble bench near the center of the garden, right beside the grand fountain. The water in the basin was still, acting as a perfect, dark mirror for the moon above.
Or perhaps, for the girl looking down into it.
The face reflected in the water looked sharp, strong, and undeniably aristocratic—a visage befitting my status. Beautiful silver strands of hair cascaded down my shoulders, the wind occasionally blowing a few wisps across my obsidian eyes. In the pale moonlight, those dark eyes seemed to hold a bottomless mystery.
She was Aria Astel Ashborne.
Daughter of the Southern Duke. A family whose name was synonymous with shadows, mastery over Dark Magic, and the terrifying, forbidden arts of Curses. Her father is the strongest Archmage in the Empire, a man whose sheer magical density could curse a high-ranking entity into oblivion with a flick of his wrist. He earned his terrifying prestige from a young age, elevating the Ashborne name from a rising star to a foundational pillar of the Empire.
The Duke has two sons and three daughters.
Every single one of her older siblings inherited the terrifying, overwhelming magical power of their bloodline. They are walking natural disasters, blessed with mana capacities that make ordinary nobles turn pale.
Everyone, that is, except her.
The third daughter. The youngest. Aria.
She did not inherit the vast, suffocating oceans of mana that her family is famous for. To the rest of the world, She was the unfortunate defect. She was the weak, innocent girl who had tragically failed to inherit the terrifying magical prowess of the Southern Duke.
But that was only on the surface. That was the convenient lie the world swallowed because people are, by nature, unobservant.
The real truth—a truth not even her father fully understood—was that She didn't need an ocean of mana. She was born with an intellect that eclipsed the combined wisdom of most of her instructors. She possessed an IQ so terrifyingly high that the world around her often felt like it was moving in slow motion.
From a very young age, She learned to mask my expressions. She learned how the social hierarchy functioned, how the intricate, venomous web of the noble world spun itself. The moment She stepped into high society, She didn't just participate in the social circle; She took control of it. She smiled at the right people, feigned ignorance at the perfect moments, and let them project their assumptions onto her.
They called her the 'Silver Rose of the Empire.' Beautiful, delicate, and universally adored because She was completely unthreatening.
But beneath that flawless smile, beneath the practiced curtsies and the innocent gaze, lay a terrifying abyss.
Not an abyss of darkness or malice.
An abyss of absolute, soul-crushing boredom.
When you understand the mechanics of everything around you, the magic is gone. Literally. Her talent in the dark elements wasn't bound by raw power; it was bound by pure, unfiltered comprehension. When She was just a child, playing with dolls in the corner of her father's study, She would peek at the lessons he was giving her older siblings.
He would spend weeks trying to teach them the complex runic structures of a mid-tier curse.
She would look at the formula once, map the mana vectors in her head, and cast it flawlessly on her first try later that night in her room. Necromancy, the art of binding souls and animating the dead, was considered the pinnacle of their family's dark arts. To her, it was just a puzzle. A mathematical equation of flesh and spiritual residue. She had mastered high-level necromancy before She was twelve.
***
I sat on the bench, leaning my head back against the cold stone, my expression dropping into complete, unadulterated apathy. I was just about to stand up, officially resigning myself to another night of meaningless sleep, when a sound broke the silence.
Crunch. Crunch.
Footsteps on the gravel path.
I paused, but I didn't turn around. I didn't need to see who it was; I already knew. After all, I was the one who had agreed to meet him here.
He had sent a letter to me earlier today, slipping it to one of my so-called 'friends' in the social circle. At first, I wasn't even going to open it. I was perfectly prepared to toss it into the fireplace. But then my friend had breathlessly mentioned the sender's name.
Leonhart.
That had made me pause.
The rumors in the upper echelons of the social circle had been burning like wildfire lately. Rias von Leonhart had officially terminated his engagement with Viola Valeris. In the insulated bubble of the academy, it was just juicy teenage gossip. But out there, in the real world of high nobility? It was a massive political earthquake. It affected the standing of both households, but primarily, it humiliated his.
Add his status as the Duke's illegitimate son to the mix, and his reputation was essentially in the gutter.
My father was best friends with Duke Reinard. Because of that connection, I had known Rias from a distance for years.
To put it bluntly, I always thought he was a hardworking idiot. A complete, blockheaded dog trying to break down a brick wall with his teeth. He had a frail, pathetic constitution, yet he never missed a single day of physical training. He swung his sword until he collapsed, never using his brain, never trying to adapt to his own weaknesses. He just threw himself at his lack of talent, expecting the universe to reward his blind effort.
'I always assumed he would just vanish,' I thought, watching the ripples in the fountain.
'A weak person in a cruel world. A stepping stone meant to be ground into dust by the real monsters of our generation.'
But then, the impossible happened.
I heard the whispers from the combat division. Rias von Leonhart had broken through to the Sword Expert rank. He had manifested Sword Aura. He had publicly dismantled Gareth Thorne without casting a single spell.
That single piece of information completely shattered my perspective of him.
I have never, in my entire life, been wrong in my assessment of a person. I calculate variables, I predict outcomes, and I am always right.
But Rias had proved me wrong.
I wanted to know what he was. How did such a complete, fundamental metamorphosis happen? Did he suddenly wake up and realize the error of his ways? Or were there far more dangerous secrets lurking beneath the surface of the "weakest Leonhart" than anyone knew?
That anomaly was the only reason I was sitting here in the freezing cold. For the first time in years, the crushing weight of my boredom had been pierced by a tiny sliver of genuine interest. I was intensely curious to see what kind of person he had become.
The footsteps stopped just a few feet away.
"I want your help," a calm, steady voice said.
I slowly turned my head to look at him. My expression remained perfectly unchanged—the serene, untouchable mask of the Silver Rose.
I didn't give him the cliché responses. I didn't say, 'Why would I help you?' or scoff, 'Who do you think you are to ask me for a favor?' That was how standard, predictable nobles behaved.
Instead, I looked straight into his crimson eyes and asked, "What kind of help do you need?"
Rias didn't seem surprised by my lack of hostility. He walked forward, his posture remarkably different from the hunched, desperate boy I remembered from our childhood. He moved with the quiet confidence of someone who finally understood the space they occupied.
He sat down on the low stone rim of the fountain pond, directly opposite my bench.
"I want your connections from the social circle," he said, his voice quiet but carrying clearly over the sound of the water. "And I want you to help me attract the backing of the high-ranking nobles."
I tilted my head, my silver hair shifting over my shoulder. I analyzed the request instantly.
"Are you stepping forward for the seat of the Student Council President?" I asked.
He stopped, holding my gaze without flinching.
"No," he said smoothly. "But someone important to me is."
I looked at his serious face. There was no hesitation in his eyes. He wasn't playing a prank, and he wasn't doing this for ego. He was dead serious.
My expression remained a placid mask of polite inquiry.
"And what," I asked, lacing my fingers together on my lap, "will be my benefit for helping you? Why should the Ashborne house lift a finger for your candidate?"
He paused. The wind rustled through the weeping willow nearby.
And then, Rias von Leonhart leaned forward and spoke the most profoundly unexpected words I had ever heard in my entire life.
"You are feeling bored, aren't you?"
My breath caught in my throat. Just for a fraction of a second. But he noticed.
"Didn't you want to see something interesting for a change?" he continued, his crimson eyes gleaming with a strange, sharp light. "You have probably heard the whispers in the social circle. The Second Prince, Arey, and the Third Prince, Aurelius. They both have massive factions. Everyone in this academy, everyone in the Empire, assumes it is a guaranteed certainty that one of the royal family members will take the presidency. It's been that way for years. The Crown Prince, the First Princess... it's a monopoly."
He stood up from the fountain edge, closing the distance between us just a little.
"I want to change this view," he said, his voice dropping into a register that felt dangerously compelling. "I want to prove to this academy that nothing remains the same. That the script can be torn apart."
He looked down at me, the moonlight catching the hard angles of his face.
"Help me," Rias said, "and I will make sure to entertain you. I will personally make sure to turn that abyss of boredom you're drowning in into absolute interest. So, what do you say?"
Silence fell over the garden.
I stared up at him. I processed his words, peeling back the layers of what he had just offered. He wasn't offering money. He wasn't offering political favors.
He had looked right through my flawless mask, seen the rotting boredom inside my soul, and offered me chaos.
A strange, bubbling sensation rose in my chest. It climbed up my throat, pushing past my pristine etiquette, bypassing my self-control entirely.
"Hahahahaha!"
I laughed.
It started as a soft chuckle, but quickly grew into a genuine, bright laugh that echoed through the quiet garden. It was the first time I had truly, honestly laughed in years. It felt alien, yet incredibly liberating.
A single tear of pure amusement formed at the corner of my eye. I reached up and elegantly wiped it away with my fingertip.
I looked back at him. He hadn't moved. He just watched me, waiting.
I stood up from the marble bench. I stepped forward, crossing the invisible boundary of personal space until I was just a few inches away from him. I had to tilt my head up slightly to meet his eyes.
"You have already made me interested, Rias," I whispered, the corners of my lips curling into a smile that had absolutely nothing to do with the 'Silver Rose.' It was the smile of the girl who solved necromancy for fun.
I reached up, my hand moving smoothly. Before he could react, I brushed his blonde bangs upward, revealing his untouched, handsome forehead.
Flick—
I flicked his forehead with my middle finger. Hard enough to sting, playful enough to confuse him.
He blinked, visibly startled by the sudden, entirely informal gesture.
I took a graceful step backward, letting my hands fall back to my sides.
"Make sure to entertain me," I said, my voice rich with anticipation. "I'll be waiting."
I didn't wait for his response. I turned on my heel and walked away, the hem of my skirt swishing softly against the stone path.
As I disappeared into the darkness toward the female dormitories, my heart was beating a slightly faster rhythm. The world, which had felt like a dull, solved equation for so long, suddenly felt entirely unpredictable.
'Rias von Leonhart,' I thought, smiling into the shadows. 'Let's see what kind of future you're going to unfold.'