This indeed seemed to be a misunderstanding.
Sael deflected the fireball that had just been launched at him from behind with a casual flick of his wrist, redirecting it upward where it dissipated harmlessly into the air. The spell had been weak enough that it probably would have fizzled out before reaching him anyway, but deflecting it seemed politer than just standing there and letting it bounce off his passive defenses.
He turned slightly to acknowledge the source, a boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, standing near the bushes with his hands still raised in a casting position. The kid's mana signature was the weaker of the two he'd sensed earlier. Not a particularly good mage it seemed. The fireball had barely made it halfway before the flames started guttering out.
Sael returned his attention to the girl currently mid-leap, sword raised for another strike.
So. He'd come here to find the necromancer who'd sent the dragon. Instead, he'd found what appeared to be officials from the kingdom, judging by the emblem etched into the girl's pauldrons—a crowned falcon, which was the symbol of the Albyon kingdom's forces if he remembered correctly. The detailing was a bit ornate for standard military issue, which suggested she held some rank. An officer, maybe. Possibly even a knight apprentice, though she seemed young for that.
Then again, he'd been young when he'd made his name too, so who was he to judge?
She and the boy had probably been sent to investigate the dragon attack, arrived at the impact site, and then watched a hooded figure appear out of thin air and start doing magic. From their perspective, he probably looked deeply suspicious.
Sael squinted slightly, using [Third Eye] on the girl as she closed the distance.
[Level 94]
High for someone her apparent age. Even with a mana core and monster core consumption to push past natural limits, most people her age managed three to five levels a year through their youth and sat somewhere between level 40 and 50 if they'd been working hard. She'd nearly doubled that.
Either she had exceptional talent, or she'd been throwing herself into considerably more danger than was wise for someone still wearing an apprentice badge.
Probably both.
But alas, she didn't seem to have invested much in her Wisdom stats, because realizing the gap between them and choosing to flee instead of persisting like this should have been the more logical choice after realizing he wasn't someone she could take on.
Tsk, tsk. At this rate, she was going to hurt herself.
Behind him, the boy launched another spell. This one was some kind of ice bolt, though it melted into lukewarm water about ten feet from Sael and splashed harmlessly onto the ground.
Really not a good mage, this little one.
The girl was three feet away now, sword angled for a thrust aimed at his shoulder—smart targeting, actually, going for a disabling strike rather than a kill shot. Her form was still excellent. Weight distributed properly. Blade steady despite her speed.
She was committed to the attack. Fully committed. No hesitation in her eyes.
Which meant she wasn't going to stop.
Sael reached into his [Inventory] and pulled out a small mirror.
It was about the size of his palm, circular, with a plain wooden frame. The glass was perfectly smooth and reflective, though if you looked closely you'd notice it didn't quite show what was in front of it. The reflection was always slightly off—a different angle, a different time of day, sometimes a different place entirely.
He channeled mana into it.
The mirror flared with light, bright enough that the girl's eyes widened in alarm. She tried to redirect, to abort the attack, but her momentum was carrying her forward and there was nowhere to go.
Fwoosh.
The girl screamed.
Not in pain. In surprise, mostly, and maybe a bit of fear. The sound cut off abruptly as the mirror's surface rippled like disturbed water and she was pulled into it—armor, sword, red cape and all. One moment she was lunging at him with a blade. The next she was gone, absorbed completely into the reflective surface.
The mirror stopped glowing.
Sael held it up and looked at the glass.
The girl stared back at him from inside, pressed against what looked like an invisible barrier. Her mouth was moving—probably yelling—but no sound came through. She pounded on the surface with her fist, which didn't accomplish anything except making her look more frustrated.
Behind her, visible in the mirror's distorted reflection, was a small room. Plain walls. A single chair. Perfectly comfortable, if a bit boring. He hoped she wouldn't panic too much once she realized she wasn't dead
That was one problem handled. He turned to the other.
***
Orion was going to die here.
The thought hit him with perfect clarity as he watched Ilsa disappear into the mirror, swallowed whole by whatever horrific magic that thing was using. One second she'd been there—solid, real, screaming—and the next she was just gone, pulled into that circular piece of glass like water down a drain.
His hands were shaking.
No. His whole body was shaking.
The necromancer—because that's what this was, had to be, who else would show up at a dragon crash site with a hood and high level teleportation magic—turned toward him. Slow. Deliberate. Like he had all the time in the world.
Orion's breath came in short gasps.
Ilsa was dead.
His friend. The person who'd convinced him to come on this mission even though he was terrible at magic, who'd said he needed field experience, who'd promised it would be fine—
She was dead. And he was next.
He needed to run. Get back to the city. Tell someone. Tell her family. Tell the Guard Captain. Get reinforcements. And... and..
A-Avenge her.
His hands shot up, fingers trembling as he tried to form the spell matrix for [Smoke Screen]. It was basic magic. First-year stuff. He'd practiced it a hundred times.
The matrix wouldn't form.
"Come on," he whispered frantically. "Come on—"
Nothing. His mana felt like sludge, thick and unresponsive. He was panicking too hard. He knew you needed focus to cast. He knew that. But knowing didn't help when your friend just got eaten by a cursed mirror.
"[Smoke—]"
The spell fizzled. A pathetic wisp of gray mist puffed out from his hands and dissipated immediately.
Useless. He was completely useless. Ilsa had always been the talented one, level 94 at nineteen, a member of the knight order already, everyone said she'd become captain before she was thirty. And him? Level 18 at seventeen. Barely passed the Academy entrance exam. Got expelled three months later for "insufficient aptitude."
He should have been a baker. His uncle had wanted him to be a baker. But noo, he'd insisted on being a mage, because he was an idiot who couldn't accept that some people just weren't born with talent.
The hooded figure took a step toward him.
Orion bolted.
He turned and ran, crashing through the underbrush with all the grace of a startled deer. Branches whipped at his face. His apprentice robes caught on something and tore, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop.
His lungs burned.
His heart hammered.
Behind him—nothing. No footsteps. No sound of pursuit.
That was worse somehow.
He risked a glance back.
The clearing was empty.
Where—
"Hey."
Orion screamed.
The figure stood directly in front of him, somehow, impossibly. He hadn't heard anything. No teleportation sound. No displacement of air. The man had just appeared, like he'd been standing there the whole time and Orion had run right toward him.
"[Fire—[Ice—[Light—]" Orion's hands flailed, trying to cast something, anything. Three different spells overlapped in his mind and collapsed into nothing. His mana scattered uselessly.
He veered left and ran again.
Twenty feet later, the figure was in front of him.
"Hey," the man said again. Same tone. Calm. Almost gentle.
Orion stumbled backward, tripped over a root, caught himself. His breathing was ragged now, each inhale scraping his throat raw.
He tried to cast [Frost Bolt]. The matrix started forming—actually started this time—but his concentration shattered when the figure moved slightly and it exploded into useless sparks.
"Stop—" Orion's voice cracked. "Just—please—"
He ran again. Different direction. Didn't matter. The forest blurred around him. His vision was tunneling. Was he crying? He might be crying.
The figure appeared in front of him a third time.
Orion's legs gave out.
He hit the ground hard, hands pressing into dirt and ash. His whole body was shaking so badly he couldn't stand even if he wanted to.
Footsteps approached from behind. Slow. Measured.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
Orion closed his eyes.
This was it.
He was going to die in a burned-out forest, alone, useless. Ilsa was already dead. His uncle would never know what happened to him. They'd search, maybe find his body eventually, wonder why he'd been stupid enough to come out here when he couldn't even cast a basic spell under pressure.
He should have stayed in the capital.
Should have accepted the expulsion from the Academy.
Should have become a baker like his uncle wanted.
Should have stopped Ilsa from coming on this mission. And now she was dead because of him.
Because he'd been too weak, too incompetent, too—
"I am not the necromancer," a voice said.
Orion's thoughts stuttered.
"And your friend is alive."
He opened his eyes.
The hooded figure crouched in front of him now, close enough that Orion could finally see under the hood. A young man's face. Maybe mid-twenties, though something about his eyes suggested older. Silver hair. Pale skin. An expression that was carefully neutral, like he was trying very hard not to seem threatening and wasn't quite sure how.
He held up the mirror.
Orion stared.
Ilsa stared back.
She was inside the glass, actually inside it, pressed against some invisible barrier. She was yelling something, pounding on the surface with her fist. Her mouth moved rapidly, forming words he couldn't hear, but she was clearly furious rather than terrified.
She was alive.
"See?" the man said. His voice was gentle. Monotonous. A bit deep. The voice of a young man, but with a strange quality to it, like he was reading from a script he'd memorized but didn't quite understand. "Calm down."
Orion stared at the mirror.
At Ilsa.
At the man holding it.
His mind refused to process what he was seeing.
"I..." His voice came out as a whisper. "You..."
"I put her in the mirror," the man said, as if this was a completely reasonable explanation. "She attacked me. I needed her to stop attacking me. So I put her in the mirror."
Orion's mouth opened and closed.
"She's not hurt," the man continued. "Just... contained. Temporarily. Until we can talk without her trying to stab me."
He paused, tilting his head slightly.
"You're also not hurt. Which is good. Running in three different directions was creative, though ineffective."
Orion finally found words.
"You—you're not the necromancer?"
"No."
"But the dragon—"
"I killed it."
"The hood—"
"It's fashion."
The words barely registered. Orion suspected that, in a less life-threatening context, that answer might have warranted at least some kind of follow-up. As things stood, his fight-or-flight response was still holding an all-hands meeting.
Several seconds of silence passed.
"I think there's been a misunderstanding," the man said finally.
He reached up and pulled back his hood.
Orion kept staring.
Green eyes. That was the first thing he noticed. Bright green, the color of new spring leaves, sharp and focused in a way that made Orion feel like he was being examined rather than looked at. Short silver hair, cut practically with no particular style to it. A full beard, neatly trimmed but substantial enough to suggest he'd been growing it for a while.
He was tall. Very tall. Over six foot four, easily, with a build that suggested strength without bulk.
Young face. Mid-twenties, maybe. Which was odd, because his hair wasn't bleached, it had that particular quality you only got from aging, the kind of color loss that came from time rather than dye. But his skin was smooth. No wrinkles. No weathering except around his eyes, and even that was minimal.
His expression was stoic. Carefully stoic, Orion realized now that he was calm enough to notice these things. The man was consciously holding his face neutral, like he was worried about what might show if he didn't.
Wait.
Calm enough to notice?
Orion's breathing had steadied. His heart rate had dropped. His thoughts were clearer than they'd been moments ago when he'd been convinced he was about to die.
That wasn't natural.
The panic should still be there. He'd just watched Ilsa get absorbed by a magic mirror. He'd run through a forest convinced a necromancer was hunting him. People didn't just calm down from that in thirty seconds.
Was the man applying a spell on him?
The fear spiked again, but it was muted somehow. Distant. Like it was happening to someone else and Orion was just observing.
Definitely a spell.
Which meant this person was powerful enough to cast calming magic without speaking, without gestures, possibly without Orion even noticing until he thought about it.
"Who are you?" Orion asked. His voice came out steadier than he expected.
The man tilted his head slightly. "I should be the one asking that."
He paused.
"Who are you?"
Orion straightened immediately, some instinct in his brain screaming that he should not, under any circumstances, anger this person. Stories existed about people like this. Wandering mages who turned out to be ancient archmasters. And when you met one of those, the only sensible move was to...
"Orion Kelstis!" The words tumbled out faster than he intended. "First-year mage apprentice at the Academy of Astra!"
He stopped himself from mentioning that he'd been expelled. That seemed like unnecessary information. He was still wearing the uniform, after all: the dark blue robes with silver trim that marked students of Astra. The fact that he technically wasn't allowed to wear it anymore didn't seem relevant to the current situation.
The man looked at him. His expression didn't change. No reaction or acknowledgment. Just that same carefully neutral face.
Was that good? Bad? Orion had no idea.
He looked back, trying to keep his own expression respectful, calm and not terrified.
Several seconds of silence passed.
The man blinked once. Slow and deliberate, like he was processing information.
"Could you—" Orion swallowed. "Could you please release my friend? Sir?"
The 'sir' felt appropriate given the circumstances. His uncle had always said that when you weren't sure of someone's rank, err on the side of respect. Better to over-respect than accidentally insult someone who could turn you into a toad.
Could this man turn him into a toad?
Probably.
The man glanced down at the mirror in his hand. He studied it for a moment, turning it slightly as if examining it from different angles.
Inside the mirror, Ilsa had stopped pounding on the barrier. She was standing now, arms crossed, watching them through the glass. Her expression had shifted from fury to something more calculating. She'd clearly heard the conversation—heard Orion identify himself, heard the explanation about the misunderstanding.
She was waiting.
Smart. That was Ilsa. Always smart.
"Who is she?" the man asked. His tone was conversational. Curious, even, but in that same flat way.
Orion watched the man's face carefully as he answered, looking for any sign of what response would be acceptable.
"I-Ilsa of House Eryndor," Orion said, keeping his voice even and respectful as much as possible. "Fourth daughter of Lord Richter Eryndor, Duke of Orlys, from the Kingdom of Albyon."
The man's expression didn't change. No apparent recognition of the name. No reaction to the title.
That was either very good or very bad.
Very good if he simply didn't understand the meaning of nobility. Very bad if he was so far above such concerns that a duke's daughter was beneath his notice.
Orion decided to try a different approach.
"She's my friend."
Something flickered in the man's eyes. Brief. Almost imperceptible. But it was there.
That had been the right thing to say.
"I apologize for the misunderstanding," Orion continued carefully, watching the man's face for any reaction. The words came out measured now, not rushed. "We came here to look for someone, we were near the village of Gatsby when we saw an explosion in the sky."
No reaction.
"Some people we passed said there was a dragon here. A necro-dragon."
Still nothing.
"So we thought we'd come to investigate, and when you appeared we thought—"
He stopped, wondering if he should actually say it. The man glanced at him. Just a flick of his eyes, brief and expectant.
Say it, then.
"We thought you were the one who summoned it," Orion finished. "The necromancer. So we attacked. Which was wrong. Again, I apologize."
The man murmured something under his breath.
Orion's heart jumped. "I'm sorry?"
"I said I understood that already." The man's voice was calm. "But I didn't want to interrupt your explanation. That would have been rude."
At that, Orion wasn't sure what to say.
It was... considerate?
He'd been terrified this person was going to kill him, and the man was worried about being rude? He opened his mouth again, trying to figure out what to say next.
No words came out.
Silence stretched between them. The man didn't seem bothered by it. He just stood there, holding the mirror, expression perfectly neutral. Neither uncomfortable nor impatient. Just... waiting. Like he had all the time in the world.
Orion's suspicion that this might be a hermit testing him was getting significantly larger. The casual power. The strange politeness. The complete lack of urgency about anything.
He gulped.
"Ah," the man said suddenly.
He shook the mirror.
Not violently. Just a casual flick of his wrist, the way you might shake water off an umbrella.
Ilsa shot out of it face-first and hit the ground with a solid thud.
"Ow!" She pushed herself up immediately, spitting dirt.
"My apologies," the man said. His tone suggested genuine regret, though his expression remained unchanged.
Ilsa dropped to one knee immediately.
"No. I should apologize for jumping to conclusions without proper investigation," she said, head bowed. Her voice was steady despite having just been pulled from a magic mirror. "Thank you for sparing us."
"Hmm," the man said.
Orion wasn't sure what he meant by that. The sound was noncommittal. Vague. Could mean anything from 'you're welcome' to 'I wasn't really thinking about killing you in the first place' to 'I have no idea how to respond to gratitude.'
But Ilsa was safe. That was what mattered. She was kneeling in the dirt, armor slightly scuffed from her impact with the ground, but otherwise unharmed. No visible injuries. No signs of trauma from being inside a magic mirror for several minutes.
Orion felt tension drain from his shoulders he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
They should leave. Thank the man properly, apologize once more for the misunderstanding, and get as far away from this clearing as possible. Spending time with someone this powerful seemed like a good way to accidentally say or do something that would get them both turned into newts.
He opened his mouth to suggest exactly that.
"Are you..." Ilsa said before he could speak, still kneeling, her voice hesitant in a way Orion had rarely heard from her, "Are you Sael the Great?"
The words hung in the air.
Orion went very still.
His mind stuttered. Stopped. Restarted.
Oh.
He'd almost forgotten why they were here in the first place.
Something clicked. A memory surfacing from two months ago, back when Ilsa had first approached him in the capital. She'd been holding an old leather journal—worn at the edges, pages yellowed with age, the kind of artifact that belonged in a museum rather than in someone's personal possession.
Look at this, she'd said, her eyes bright with an excitement he hadn't seen in her before.
The journal had belonged to Bran the Brave. Her ancestor. The founder of House Eryndor. A hero from four centuries ago who'd fought alongside the legendary archmage during what the histories called the One Quest.
Orion had read passages from it while sitting in Ilsa's study, skeptical but willing to humor her.
Sael is not like other humans, one entry had read, the handwriting precise despite its age. He settled in Gatsby after the war, married an innkeeper named Eirlys. I like to visit them when I can. I've never seen him so content. He had a spark in his eyes. He smiled more in that single afternoon than in all our years of campaigning.
Another entry, dated years later: Sael's wife, Eirlys, died today. I've never seen him weep, but I know he does so when no one watches. He's been hard to reach as he now wanders the world endlessly. He... seems to have lost that spark.
And then, near the end of the journal, written in a shakier hand: Every ten years, on Sael's Day, he appears in Gatsby. I've confirmed this three times now. It's the only pattern I've found in his movements. I had planned to seek him out one final time, to go on one last adventure like we promised when we were young. But I've grown too old. My legs won't carry me that far anymore. Perhaps my children, or their children, will find him someday.
Ilsa had spent months cross-referencing that journal with historical records. Village registries. Guild reports. Scraps of information scattered across centuries.
And she'd found a pattern. Sightings that matched. A wandering mage with silver hair. Always alone. Always moving.
Come with me, she'd said. Help me look for him.
And he'd said yes. Not because he believed her. Because he'd been too depressed to stay in the Orlys after the Academy expelled him. Every street corner reminded him of his failure. Every familiar face a reminder that he wasn't good enough.
And partly—he could admit it now—because people mocked Ilsa for this. Called her obsessed and delusional. An Eryndor wasting her time chasing fairy tales. He hadn't liked that. Hadn't liked the condescending way the others talked about her behind her back.
So he'd come.
They'd traveled to Gatsby. Done their research. Asked questions.
And now...
Orion looked at the man standing in front of them.
Silver hair. Not bleached or dyed. The kind of color you only got from age.
Green eyes. Bright and sharp.
Tall. Imposing, even though his posture was relaxed.
Not like other humans.
He'd thought that description was vague when he'd first read it. What did that even mean? Everyone was different in some way.
But now... he understood. It wasn't about appearance at all.
Orion's heart was beating faster now.
For the first time since removing his hood, the man's expression changed.
It wasn't much. Just a slight shift. His eyebrows rose fractionally. Like he was surprised someone had recognized him, and wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that.
Then the expression smoothed out again into that careful neutrality.
But Orion had seen it. That moment of recognition. Of acknowledgment.
Surely...
It wouldn't be...
But what if...
"Yes," the man said. His voice was still gentle. "I am."
Three words, and Orion's brain stopped functioning. Figuratively speaking, of course.
By God. He thought, as cognition resumed its duties.
Ilsa had been right.
She'd been right.