"Miss, I…" Sheila hesitated. She had already noticed the decline in the number of magic teachers long ago, but the matter was difficult to interfere with.
Sheila had noticed the steady decline in the number of active magic instructors for months. She had watched names disappear from rosters, seen lecture halls that were once full becoming half-empty. It had gnawed at her. But it was not a problem one could fix with a proclamation. It required politics, favors, and a patience the bureaucracy rarely spared.
"Most mages have their own research projects," Sheila said, choosing each word cautiously. "After finishing their studies they go abroad — foreign courts, private patronage, personal research. If we summon them back and assign them to rural schools, we interrupt their work. Most of them will refuse grassroots teaching. They won't accept it."
Aura listened, fingers steepled, expression unreadable.
Sheila found herself speaking faster, trying to lay out the bureaucratic truth as plainly as she could.
"Didn't we have a training program? What about the mages we subsidized through it?" she asked.
Sheila sighed, "That program… many didn't take it seriously. Those who rose under it now hold respectable posts in the Association. Even if their personal status is modest, they have patrons above them. If we press them, those patrons will. We can ask — but if they refuse, we can only look the other way."
Sheila looked troubled. This wasn't like the situation back in Hohenburg.
In Hohenburg, their only enemies were the nobles who obstructed the Association's progress—a problem easily solved when everyone united against a common foe. Once united, they could shatter the nobles' blockade.
But now, if they want to make changes to the Magic Association...it won't be easy to handle even if they report it to the president.
After all, the President herself was a mage. Offending the nobles was fine, but offending fellow mages would shake the very foundation of her support in the Association.
That was the weakness of the Mage Association. Externally, they were fine. Most mages came from commoner backgrounds and naturally opposed aristocracy. When their strength was united, even royal authority could not ignore them.
But asking those same mages, after they had earned their prestige, to lower themselves and return to teach across the kingdoms…?
Sorry. After struggling so hard to reach their current positions, why should they relive the same hardships again?
Sheila sighed "Even if we notify those mages who went missing from the cultivation program, I don't think they will rush back from their respective countries."
It was, after all, an internal matter of the Mage Association—hardly one that could be resolved neatly.
Surely, even Miss Aura would care about what other mages might say, right? After all, they were her colleagues—some might even have studied alongside her in Kribi during her academy years.
When dealing with familiar faces, especially those she might have to work with again. It was difficult to act decisively.
Aura's eyes flicked to her. "They won't come back?"
"I don't think so, Miss. Even if we send notices, even if we threaten—those who have entrenched positions, court employment, or powerful sponsors will not rush back. They have roots. They have pride. And they have leverage."
Aura's mouth formed a thin line. For a moment she was quiet, measuring. Then, as if decision had been made in a single breath, she said, without hesitation: "Revoke their mage licenses."
Sheila's hands shot up as if to catch falling papers. "Miss — you can't! We can't do that!"
"Why not?" Aura asked, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
Sheila leaned forward, voice urgent. "For a researcher who returns home, sure — revocation might be an extreme but workable penalty. But for those who now hold important posts, or who serve courts beyond our borders, it's a humiliation. It would provoke backlash from their patrons and from the Association itself. These are people with ties across the Kingdom. You'd be isolating yourself from colleagues. You could damage the very foundation of the reforms you've built."
Aura tilted her head, somewhat confused:
"Even demons honor contracts to some extent. Why don't humans? They studied magic using the Association's resources, yet now that they've succeeded, they turn their backs? They enjoyed the benefits of the training program, but refuse to fulfill their obligations? That's unfair."
"That's true," Sheila admitted reluctantly. "It's unfair to those who followed the rules. But Miss, these people are woven into the Association. You can't simply crush them as you did the nobles. They have networks here. If you move too bluntly — if you revoke licenses en masse — you risk the support of other mages. You risk your standing with the President and the councils."
"Sheila, I think you misunderstood something," Aura stood up, walked to the windowsill and opened the curtain.
"First, since I've reached this position through blood and coercion, do you really think I care about my future?"
Aura smiled faintly. When she pulled the curtain open, sunlight flooded the room. Sheila squinted, her eyes adjusting before she noticed Aura pointing to a distant silhouette outside the city of Kribi—the shadow of a great cathedral palace on the horizon.
Sheila's voice softened to a whisper. "But people will curse you. The reputation you've built… it could be ruined. Even those who admire you now might turn if you're seen as persecuting colleagues."
Aura's pupils narrowed, calm and cold. "Second: my future is decided by that place," she said, pointing toward the cathedral-palace. "Outside of petty networks it holds weight none of them can touch. No matter how tangled their connections are, they cannot reach what lies there."
Sheila swallowed. "Miss—"
"Third—" Aura opened her eyes wide, her purple pupils were calm and indifferent, yet making people feel creepy and uncomfortable when being stared at, as if there was some inhuman monster hiding in her eyes.
"…I don't care. I've never cared what humans think. If possible, I wouldn't care what elves think either. If not for someone's thousand-year plan, I wouldn't even be here. To mingle with these insects already tests my patience. To ask me to understand them? I'd rather crush them—and then try to understand what the remains of their flesh are thinking."
"Miss… then, what should we do?"
"Summon every mage who benefited from the training program and graduated from the academies," she said slowly, "They will obey the Association's arrangements and serve as instructors for three years. No exceptions."
Sheila hesitated. "And… if they refuse?"
"Then their licenses awarded by headquarters will be revoked. Their qualifications as mages will be stripped. They will no longer be recognized by the Association."
There was a long pause. The faint wind outside fluttered the curtains
"And if they refuse to hand over their badges…?" she ventured cautiously.
Aura's lips curled, a faint red gleam flickering in her eyes.
Even without a weapon in her hand, Sheila could see the image of the purple-haired mage swinging an axe—heads falling one after another in a blood-soaked vision.
"That," she said, "would mean the Association's control over its branches has already rotted. And rot... must be cut out before it spreads. Serie put me here for that very reason."
"…Understood," she said at last, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it. She lowered her head, hiding the sweat that had gathered on her brow. "I will make the arrangements."
'So that was Mistress Serie's intent for bringing Miss Aura back to headquarters. I had been too young, too naive and only seemed smart on the surface, but far less perceptive than my superior, never catching the true implication of Mistress Serie's order.'
Aura's eyes softened faintly. "Good," she murmured, almost kindly. "You may go."
Sheila bowed quickly, clutching the stack of reports to her chest, and left. The sound of her footsteps faded down the marble corridor until only silence remained.
Aura turned back to the window, staring at the faint silhouette of the cathedral beyond Kribi's walls.
In truth, Aura had no idea what Serie was really thinking.
But as someone who once served as President of the Mage Association—though the Association in her time had been far smaller, and though she rarely bothered with management—every order she issued as the president had reached every branch instantly, executed without hesitation.
Yet now, the Association dared to ignore direct orders from headquarters.
Aura had already noticed hints of it back in Hohenburg, but she'd thought it was a problem unique to that remote city.
Now she knew—it wasn't.
For someone like Aura, having the commands of a superior ignored was intolerable.
She had knelt, begged, even wagged her tail before despicable humans for the sake of survival—but had she ever thought of betraying the Demon King?
Never!!
Aura's loyalty to the Demon King had never wavered.
And yet now, the very Mage Association she had founded—
—had dared to distribute central authority to its branches.
The mages sent from Kribi to other divisions were defying headquarters' orders—
Aura was furious beyond measure.
Everything should belong to the headquarters.
Everything should belong to her.
How dare these humans tear apart her Mage Association?!