---
The training grounds had fallen quiet.
Giovanni stood in the center of the courtyard, his chest heaving, his legs trembling beneath him. Sweat dripped from his chin and soaked through his clothes—now stained with dirt and dust. His wavy blond hair clung to his forehead in damp strands, and his turquoise eyes, usually so carefully composed, were wide and bright with exhaustion.
But he was smiling. Actually smiling.
"Not bad, kid," Fanzell said, his voice carrying that lazy warmth that Giovanni was already beginning to recognize. "Not bad at all."
Giovanni straightened, trying to catch his breath. "I... I can do better."
"You can always do better. That's the point." Fanzell had his hands in his pockets, his red hair somehow even messier than it had been that morning. "But for a first day? You did well. You've got monstrous mana reserves—like, genuinely absurd for your age—and your stamina is better than most kids twice your size."
Giovanni felt his ears turn red. "Thank you, Master Kruger."
"Still calling me that, huh?" Fanzell grinned. "Whatever. Anyway, I'm done for today. See you next time, kid."
He turned and walked away.
Giovanni opened his mouth to respond—to say goodbye, to ask when *next time* would be, to ask anything—but his mind was still catching up. The training had been intense. Fanzell had pushed him through mana sensing exercises, circulation drills, basic mana skin practice. Hours of it. His body was screaming, his mind was foggy, and his thoughts were moving like molasses.
By the time he processed that Fanzell had actually left, the man was already gone.
Giovanni stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty space where his instructor had been.
*He just... left.*
A maid appeared at the edge of the training grounds, her footsteps soft against the packed earth. "Young master? Your bath has been prepared. Lady Elara asked me to remind you that dinner will be served within the hour."
Giovanni nodded slowly, still staring at nothing.
"Thank you," he said, his voice distant.
He followed her back to the estate, his legs moving on autopilot. The bath was warm, soothing to his aching muscles, but his mind was elsewhere. He kept replaying the training session—Fanzell's casual instruction, the way he had explained things without ever talking down to him, the notebook full of knowledge that had been so generously shared.
*He's strange,* Giovanni thought. *But I think I can learn a lot from him.*
---
Dinner was a quiet affair.
Aunt Elara had joined them again, looking even better than she had that morning. Her cheeks were fuller, her eyes brighter, and she ate with genuine appetite. Lord Cassius, by contrast, seemed even more tired than usual, his food mostly untouched, his gaze distant.
"How was your training?" he asked, not looking up from his plate.
Giovanni considered the question. How *was* training? Exhausting. Confusing. Eye-opening. *Good.*
"The instructor is... unconventional," Giovanni said carefully. "But I believe I can learn a great deal from him. I expect to become stronger quickly."
Lord Cassius nodded slowly. "Good. That's good."
Aunt Elara frowned, her fork pausing halfway to her mouth. "Quickly? Giovanni, you're only four. There's no need to rush."
Giovanni's jaw tightened. "If I don't work harder, I won't become stronger."
The words came out sharper than he intended. Aunt Elara's expression flickered—hurt, worry, something else he couldn't name.
"Little star," she said softly, setting down her fork. "You have years ahead of you. Decades. There's no need to exhaust yourself now."
"But—"
"Promise me." Her voice was gentle but firm. "Promise me you won't train until you collapse. Not until you're older. Not until your body has had time to grow."
Giovanni wanted to argue. He wanted to say that he didn't have time, that every day he spent weak was a day he failed, that the fragments in his mind and the void behind his ribs and the cracking courtyard all demanded that he become stronger *now*.
But Aunt Elara was looking at him with those warm, worried eyes, and he couldn't say no.
"...Fine," he said, the word dragging out of him like a physical weight. "I promise."
Aunt Elara smiled, relief softening her features. "Thank you, sweetheart."
Giovanni didn't answer. He just stared at his plate and tried to ignore the frustration coiling in his chest.
---
That night, Giovanni sat on the edge of his bed, his grimoire in his hands.
The five-sided diamond caught the candlelight, its surface smooth and cool against his palms. He traced the shape with his fingers—the sharp angles, the precise lines, the symmetry that marked it as a blessing.
*A legend,* Fanzell had said. *Someone who might change the world.*
Giovanni smiled, just a little. It was a small smile, barely there, but it was real. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt like maybe—*maybe*—he could become something. Maybe the weight of the Rosenthal name wasn't a burden but a promise. Maybe the void behind his ribs wasn't a curse but a gift.
Maybe he could be great.
He stroked the center of the diamond, tracing its facets with his thumb.
And froze.
Something was wrong.
His fingers had caught on an edge—a raised line that shouldn't have been there. He frowned, lifting the grimoire closer to the candlelight.
There, running diagonally across the diamond's center, was a crack.
It was thin—barely visible, a hairline fracture that caught the light like a spider's thread. But it was unmistakably there. A break in the surface of his grimoire. A flaw in the blessing.
Giovanni's blood ran cold.
*A cracked five-sided diamond,* he thought. *A grimoire marked by great misfortune. A devil said to reside within it.*
No. No, that was just a legend. A story. It couldn't be real. He had never had contact with devils. He doesn't even have a spell in his grimoire. There was no way—
*But the crack is real.*
His hands were shaking. He stared at the fracture, his mind racing. What did it mean? What had caused it? Had it always been there, hidden beneath the surface? Had it appeared when he destroyed the courtyard? Had it been there from the very beginning?
*I need to fix it. Maybe absorbing more of my mana will mend the crack.*
The thought was desperate, irrational. But he couldn't stop himself. He pressed his palms against the grimoire, pushing his mana into it—the same way Fanzell had taught him during training. Circulation. Control. *Give the grimoire what it needs.*
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the crack began to glow.
Giovanni's breath caught. The light was soft at first—a gentle radiance that pulsed like a heartbeat. But it grew quickly, spreading from the crack to the entire grimoire, then to his hands, then to the room around him.
The radiance became blinding. Giovanni squeezed his eyes shut, his hands flying up to cover his face. He couldn't see anything—just white, white, *white*, filling every corner of his vision, searing through his eyelids.
And then—
*"Yo, wassup?"*
Giovanni's eyes snapped open.
The light was gone. The room was dark again, lit only by the flickering candle. Everything was exactly as it had been.
Except for the figure floating in front of him.
She was translucent, her form shimmering like heat haze. A young woman—maybe sixteen, maybe older—with long black hair that drifted around her shoulders as though underwater. Her eyes were sunken, dark brown pupils set in a face so pale it looked like she hadn't seen sunlight in years. She wore simple clothes—a loose shirt, loose pants—and she was grinning at him like they were old friends.
*"You sure took your time releasing me, huh?"*
Giovanni stared.
He blinked.
He pinched his arm—hard.
"Ow."
The figure was still there.
*"Hey, kid. Don't ignore me."*
Giovanni's back was suddenly drenched in cold sweat. This was real. This was actually happening. There was a *ghost* in his room—no, not a ghost, something worse—and she was talking to him like this was normal.
*I'm in deep shit,* he thought.
Then he paused.
*Wait. Where did I learn that word?*
He didn't curse. He was a Rosenthal. Rosenthals didn't curse. But the phrase had come to him so naturally, so *easily*, like he had heard it a hundred times before.
*Fanzell,* he realized. *I picked it up from Fanzell.*
The ghost—the woman—laughed. *"Well, well. You sure learned how to curse quickly. Anyway—"* She flipped her hair over her shoulder with a theatrical flourish. *"I'm Elizabeth. Your friendly neighbor. I live in your grimoire. Nice to meet you."*
Giovanni's right eye twitched.
He took a deep breath. Then another. He forced his face into the polite, formal expression he had been trained to wear since birth.
"Miss... Elizabeth," he said, his voice carefully controlled despite the trembling in his hands. "It is... a pleasure to make your acquaintance. However, I was wondering if perhaps—if it wouldn't be too much trouble—you might consider living somewhere else?"
Elizabeth clutched her chest, her face twisting into an exaggerated expression of hurt. "What? You're already trying to drive me away? And here I thought we were bonding."
Giovanni gave her a deadpan look.
Elizabeth pouted. "Shouldn't you feel bad and ask me to stay?"
"I am not a child," Giovanni said flatly. "I know better than to let a stranger—a *ghost*—live with me."
"I'm not a ghost," Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. "I'm Elizabeth. And you're literally a kid. You're like, four."
Giovanni's jaw tightened. "Are you a devil? An otherworldly monstrosity?"
Elizabeth's expression shifted—the playfulness fading, replaced by something more serious. She floated down until she was sitting cross-legged in midair, her translucent form flickering slightly.
*"No,"* she said quietly. *"I'm human."*
Giovanni raised an eyebrow. "Humans are not see-through. They cannot float. They do not live inside grimoires."
Elizabeth winced. *"Okay, fair point. But I *am* human. Or... I was."*
"What exactly happened?" Giovanni demanded. "And tell me the truth. Do not lie to me."
Elizabeth hesitated. *"Shouldn't you introduce yourself first? Properly, I mean?"*
"You can probably read my mind," Giovanni said. "Otherwise you wouldn't have known I cursed."
Elizabeth's expression turned sheepish. *"Heh. You're right about that."*
Giovanni's eyes narrowed. The temperature in the room dropped—not physically, but *energetically*, as though his mana were responding to his mood. A cold pressure filled the air, invisible but unmistakable.
"Introduce yourself," he said, his voice soft and dangerous. "In the politest way possible and keep it short."
Elizabeth let out a terrified squeak. *"Yep! Okay! Sure! No problem!"*
She straightened up, her translucent form flickering nervously.
*"So, uh... My name is Elizabeth. I'm sixteen years old. I was... I was a patient. In a hospital. I had been sick since I was a kid—some kind of terminal illness. I don't even remember what it was called anymore. I spent my whole life in that hospital. The only things I had were... animanga, novels, social media. Stuff like that. Stories. Worlds I could escape into."*
Giovanni filed the information away. *Animanga? Social media? I'll ask her about those later.*
*"And then... one night, I was just... lying there. In my bed. And everything went dark. I don't remember dying, exactly. I just remember the darkness. And then I was here. In your grimoire."*
She paused, her sunken eyes meeting his.
*"I've been trapped in there since the night you cracked the air. You know, the whole courtyard thing? That's when I woke up. But I couldn't get out. Not until you pushed your mana into the grimoire just now."*
Giovanni was quiet for a long moment.
He looked at Elizabeth—really looked at her. The sunken eyes, the pale skin, the way her form flickered like a candle flame about to go out. She was translucent, yes. She was floating, yes. But beneath all of that, she looked... tired. Scared. Lost.
*She's sixteen,* he thought. *She was sick her whole life. She died alone in a hospital bed. And now she's trapped in my grimoire.*
He let out a deep sigh.
*How troublesome has my life gotten?*
"Miss Elizabeth," he said, his voice calmer now. "I believe you. For now."
Elizabeth's face lit up. *"Really? You believe me?"*
"I said 'for now.'" Giovanni held up a hand. "You will answer my questions. You will not lie to me. And you will not—under any circumstances—cause trouble or appear before others without my permission. Understood?"
Elizabeth nodded rapidly. *"Yep! Got it! No trouble! I'm great at not causing trouble!"*
Giovanni doubted that very much.
But he was tired. Exhausted, really—physically from training, mentally from everything that had happened. He didn't have the energy to deal with this tonight.
"We will talk more tomorrow," he said. "For now, I am going to sleep. You will stay in the grimoire and not disturb me."
Elizabeth pouted. *"But I just got out! Can't I stay out a little longer?"*
"No."
*"Please?"*
"No."
*"Pretty please with a cherry on top?"*
Giovanni gave her a look that could have frozen water.
Elizabeth sighed dramatically. *"Fine, fine. I'll go back. But we're talking tomorrow, right? You promised!"*
"I did not promise. I said we *would* talk. That is different."
*"Same thing!"*
Giovanni didn't dignify that with a response. He simply picked up his grimoire and held it out.
Elizabeth's form flickered, then dissolved into motes of light that flowed back into the cracked diamond. The room returned to normal—the cold pressure gone, the air warm again, the candle burning steadily on the bedside table.
Giovanni sat there for a long moment, staring at the grimoire in his hands.
*A ghost. A sick girl from another world. Living in my grimoire.*
He let out another deep sigh.
*What has my life become?*
He set the grimoire on the table, blew out the candle, and climbed into bed. His body was exhausted, his mind was reeling, and somewhere in the back of his thoughts, a small voice was whispering that this was only the beginning.
*I need to be careful,* he thought. *I need to understand what's happening. I need to—*
His eyes closed.
Sleep claimed him within minutes.
---
**End of Chapter 5**