Administrative Center.
Late at night.
The corridors were much quieter than before the meeting.
Most of the officials had already left.
Only a few departments remained operational.
Footsteps echoed through the long corridor.
A staff member walked ahead.
Lucian followed behind.
They passed through several security doors along the way.
Finally, they stopped at the deepest part of the Administrative Center.
The staff member gently knocked on the door.
"First Director."
"Mr. Lucian has arrived."
A calm voice came from inside.
"Come in."
The door opened.
Lucian entered the office.
The room was spacious.
Yet there was little decoration.
Heavy bookshelves.
A massive desk.
And an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.
The distant city lights reflected across the snow-covered plains.
Snow continued to fall slowly through the night.
Oksana stood by the window.
Her arms were folded.
Her eyes were fixed on the view outside.
Hearing the footsteps, she turned around.
"Please sit."
Lucian nodded.
He sat down on the sofa.
The staff member left the office.
The door slowly closed.
The room became quiet again.
After a moment, Oksana spoke first.
"About what happened at the department store."
"Northveil thanks you for your assistance."
Lucian shook his head.
"I just happened to be there."
"If you hadn't been there, things wouldn't have ended this easily."
Oksana said it without any courtesy or formality.
It was simply a fact.
After the pollution crystal erupted tonight, if Azure hadn't forcibly stabilized the structure, the department store would have suffered at least a second collapse.
And the range of the pollution's spread would have far exceeded their initial estimates.
Lucian did not continue the subject.
Instead, he looked at the report on the desk.
"Are the investigation results out?"
"Not yet."
Oksana answered.
"All we know is that there is a third party behind this."
"Other than that, we have found nothing."
After saying that, she handed him a document.
It was a summary of the meeting records.
Lucian briefly flipped through it.
He soon put it down.
"They hid themselves well."
"Yes."
"And this doesn't look like something that was planned on the spur of the moment."
Oksana looked at him.
"You think so too?"
"The internal structure of the pollution source was too complicated."
Lucian spoke calmly.
"The creator clearly knew what they were doing."
"This isn't something an ordinary person could make."
The office fell silent again.
Their thoughts were almost identical.
The person behind all this was not simple.
And they had been preparing for it for a long time.
Just then.
There was another knock on the door.
"Come in."
The door opened.
Irina walked inside.
She had already changed back into her administrative uniform.
Her long hair was simply tied back.
The exhaustion on her face was much less noticeable than before.
"Finished the examination?"
Oksana asked.
"Finished."
"The results are normal."
"There is no remaining pollution."
Oksana nodded slightly.
She seemed relieved.
Irina sat down beside her.
Only then did she notice that Lucian was still there.
"You haven't gone back yet?"
"They kept me here."
Lucian answered.
Irina seemed to immediately understand why.
What happened tonight had been too serious.
The Northveil leadership would naturally want to confirm the situation personally.
For a brief moment, the three of them remained silent.
Lucian leaned back against the sofa.
He quietly observed the two women.
Ever since he entered the office, he had noticed something.
The way Oksana treated Irina was different from how she treated everyone else.
There was no commanding tone.
Nor was there the distance normally maintained between a superior and a subordinate.
It was more like a familiarity that had developed over many years.
A natural concern.
The difference was subtle.
But it was real.
So Lucian spoke.
"You two are close."
The office fell silent for a moment.
Irina raised her head.
Oksana also looked at him.
Lucian continued.
"It isn't like an ordinary superior-subordinate relationship."
Several seconds of silence passed.
Then Oksana showed the faintest hint of a smile.
"Good observation."
She walked toward the window.
Looking out at the snowy night, she spoke calmly.
"I was in the same generation as her parents."
Her voice was peaceful.
As if she were simply stating an ordinary fact.
"We met during university."
"After graduation."
"We joined the same pollution processing department."
She did not continue.
It seemed she had no intention of elaborating.
Irina showed little reaction either.
She clearly already knew.
Lucian nodded.
He did not ask any further questions.
Everyone had a past of their own.
Some things did not need to be dug into.
After a brief silence, Oksana looked at him again.
"I heard you've been traveling between different countries recently."
"Something like that."
"What is your purpose?"
This time, it was Lucian who fell silent.
He looked out the window.
The night covered the snow-covered plains.
The distant city was still illuminated.
After a moment, he slowly spoke.
"I want to change the way this world treats ability users."
The office fell silent.
Irina slightly raised her head.
Oksana did not interrupt.
She simply waited for him to continue.
"Many people are afraid of ability users."
"Many people exploit ability users."
"And many others treat ability users as tools."
Lucian spoke.
"I don't like this situation."
"So I want to do something about it."
His voice was not passionate.
Nor was he deliberately trying to make his ideals sound impressive.
He was simply speaking calmly.
As though he were explaining something perfectly natural.
Oksana stared at him.
She offered no judgment.
Irina listened quietly.
Then Lucian suddenly looked at her.
"If one day."
"There were a place where ability users could live freely."
"Would you go there?"
The question came somewhat suddenly.
The office fell silent again.
Irina thought carefully for several seconds.
Then she shook her head.
"No."
Lucian asked.
"Why?"
Irina answered calmly.
"Because this is Northveil."
"I was born here."
"I grew up here."
"I studied here."
"And I work here."
She looked toward the window.
"There are many problems here."
"But it's still my home."
Her voice was not loud.
Yet it was extremely firm.
There was no hesitation.
Nor any doubt.
That was her own answer.
Lucian looked at her.
After a moment, he smiled faintly.
He did not try to persuade her.
Nor did he try to change her mind.
The office became quiet again.
Snow continued to fall.
The city lights flickered in the distance.
Lucian fell silent.
His gaze settled deep into the night.
Suddenly.
Another scene surfaced in his mind.
He remembered the scene of the Ability User Academy being swallowed by darkness.
That was one of the reasons he had begun thinking about the future of ability users.
After a moment.
He withdrew his gaze.
And spoke calmly.
"Then."
"I'll just improve Northveil's situation."
The air grew slightly still.
Irina froze for a moment.
Oksana also looked at him.
Neither seemed to have expected that answer.
But Lucian appeared completely natural.
As though he had merely stated something obvious.
If she would not leave.
Then he would make the place where she lived better.
That was all.
Several seconds later, Oksana suddenly spoke.
"Why not force her to come with you?"
Irina was slightly startled.
She clearly had not expected such a question.
But Lucian was not surprised.
He leaned back against the sofa.
After a moment of silence, he smiled.
"If you had asked me before."
"I probably would have done exactly that."
The office fell silent.
"As long as the result was correct."
"The process didn't matter."
"That was what I used to believe."
His voice remained calm.
He neither concealed it nor denied it.
"But later, I realized."
"If I kept accumulating things like that."
"It wouldn't end well."
The air fell into a brief silence.
Because those words represented many things.
They represented growth.
And they represented change.
Oksana quietly looked at the young man before her.
For the first time, she truly realized that the person standing before her was not merely one of the heirs of the Jace Family.
He had already begun to develop ideals of his own.
And a path of his own.
Outside the window.
The wind and snow continued.
And the conversation inside the office was far from over.