Fifteen minutes prior, Cæ found himself preparing for the mission as he normally did each day before they departed from the slums.
There was only a week left for the new academic year to start, in the span of which they intended to cover fourteen districts deeper in the slums to recruit, hopefully, a few dozen individuals of elite-level talent, before the next academic year started.
"Ah, big bro," Sorenon called out to Cæ with an uncertain expression. "I think we ran out of portable fencing units since the last ones were destroyed in yesterday's battle. But those are locked up in the student council special inventory that can only be accessed with the needed authority, so…"
"I'll quickly fetch them," Cæ heaved a sigh, putting his preparatory work in the dispatch facility before immediately heading to the student council, still immersed in thought about the controversy regarding the legal battle.
Although his little speech managed to clear the air and get people focused, it left him unfocused and uncertain about the future of his partnership with the Headmistress and its survivability.
He still hadn't forged a clear path forward and hadn't gotten back to Feidin and Seliphaz with a clear answer for what they were going to do if they lost the granted protection of the Elendir Institute of Magic that allowed them to capitalize on markets deeper into the slums and truly entrench themselves in the Colohen Slums.
"Tsk," his expression grew frustrated as he felt irritated.
They had such a good thing going.
Trinity Housings sales were booming thanks to the protection allowing them to pierce deep into slums, and all the attacks from their opponents had failed.
Despite the Colohen Mafia launching almost daily attacks on the talent acquisition program operations, they had failed to kill a single person thanks to the significantly superior elite security forces of the Elendir Institute of Magic. The largest factor being that the Headmistress trusted her forces extremely well to transfer greater magicapita to their ownership temporarily to boost their mana, while the mafia didn't trust its own mages to not scam them, reducing the amount of mana their enemies had.
They could not harm either his operations or his company due to this fact.
It was perfect.
"And those Nelnmont bastards just had to ruin it all—"
He froze as he spotted a man towering over a girl in the distance down the student council hall.
An obese man donned clothes tailor-made to fit his large body.
Behind him were two senior mages who guarded his person, high on alert.
He stood over a young girl, no more than seventeen years of age, who lowered her head before him as he scolded her with an angry expression.
Before Cæ could even hide, his bodyguard mages alerted him to Cæ's presence.
A faint tension hung in the air as his eyes met with Melia's, before shifting towards her father.
The man turned his chubby head, to whatever extent he could, spotting Cæ in the distance.
Instantly, a wide smile spread on his chubby face as he walked towards Cæ with a gap between his flabby legs.
"Well, well, well," the Patriarch of the Nelnmont Family remarked with a pleasant expression. "If it isn't the wonder man himself."
The air tingled with tension.
The atmosphere grew perilous as a chilling expression of bloodlust emerged on Cæ's face, his many scars adding a menacing air to him, as his dichromatic gray eyes sharpened with anger. "You…"
"I see you haven't learned any manners." The patriarch's expression was eerie. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given your background as a lad from the slums."
His steely, yet calm eyes remained fixed on Cæ's ferocious glare.
"You are a scholarship student, are you not?" the Patriarch of the Nelnmont Family asked with an arrogant tone. "That means that your educational expenses are essentially being funded by the stakeholders of this Institute, of which I am one."
His domineering gaze bore heavily on Cæ.
"Is that any way to act towards your benefactor?"
Cæ had to physically control the urge to blast the man not with magic but with his bare fists. He itched to whale on the man, beating him within an inch of his life with his raw physicality.
And yet, he didn't dare move.
Chills crawled across his skin as he felt the gazes of the two senior mage bodyguards focusing on him with an almost warning look.
Their heavy interference fields protected their charge from any magic on his body while they themselves were on the edge of acting if Cæ made even the slightest hint of a threatening motion.
Even without that, he knew it would be foolish to lash out against the patriarch of a powerful elite family with a stronghold on the law industry in Colohen City. This man could probably crush Trinity Housings flat effortlessly, if he wanted.
Perhaps the only reason he didn't was because he still seemed to harbor the delusion that he could get Cæ to marry Melia.
Despite the fact that he clearly held some disgust towards Cæ's background as a former slum-dweller, it appeared that his desire to restore the magical talent in his blood with an exceptional genius was even greater.
This was also the man who was responsible for ending what was otherwise a great success with the talent acquisition program and Trinity Housings' expansion deeper into the slums.
The air between them was intense.
So much so that the staff members and other students scurried by across the corridor in the administrative wing of the Institute with a cold sweat. Not even the warm, bright light of the morning Sun could disperse the dark atmosphere that hung heavily in the air.
The patriarch's gaze returned towards Melia behind him.
"Melia."
She flinched under his strong tone.
"Come here, my dear daughter."
There was nothing dear in his tone.
She silently obeyed his instructions, arriving beside him.
Cæ widened his eyes as the man put his hand on her back, before pushing her hard, causing her to stumble forward, falling upon Cæ, who promptly caught her in his arms.
"Well, well, well, you two look good together," the patriarch of the Nelnmont Family grinned with approval, as his eyes shifted to meet his daughter's
"Spend some time with him."
The air tingled with peril.
His tone contained dangerous undertones.
She flinched, lowering her head.
"…Yes, father."
"Good girl," his voice was almost threatening, sharply contrasting with the words that he said. "Now then, I have appointments and engagements, I will see you later."
He threw one last look at Cæ before departing from the place, hobbling away.
The air grew awkward as Melia extricated herself from his arms with tears in her eyes.
"…I'm sorry."
Her voice was shaky.
Cæ gazed at her with deep eyes.
He didn't have a deep relationship with her.
And yet, she had reached out to him.
She had taken the effort to spend time with him.
Even if her motivations weren't the purest, he couldn't bring himself to simply walk away after he confirmed what he had always known about her family.
"…Why are you apologizing?"
His expression crumpled with anger as he glared in the direction that the Nelnmont patriarch had already disappeared. "It's that bastard's fault."
The potential destruction of the slums talent acquisition program, the cap in the growth of Trinity Housings' success, and a speed break in his overall rising success could all crumple because of one man.
"…I'm sorry."
Cæ turned to her with irritation as she apologized once more, only for his expression and eyes to soften once more when she saw the state she was in.
"Are you ok?" he gazed at her legs. "Did you get hurt?"
She shook her head as she slowly wiped her tears away, breathing deeply.
His eyes remained fixed on her. "…Have you ever tried leaving?"
A mirthless laugh escaped her as she swept her black hair behind her ears. "The impossible isn't worth trying."
Her defeatist tone wasn't unwarranted.
The Nelnmont Family was a powerful family while she had only completed a single year of her magicademics in the Apprentice Program.
On top of that, she was sheltered and while she underwent the training that all heirs to rich and affluent families underwent, she didn't possess the necessary life skills or the finesse to actually leave the family without their approval.
They were too powerful for her to possibly escape their grip.
"If you ran away far enough…" Cæ began with a serious tone. "Maybe you could—"
"They would find me in a heartbeat."
Her voice was dead.
Deprived of any hope.
Once she composed herself, she resembled a walking corpse.
"…Have you tried recording and documenting and using it in a court of law?" even as Cæ asked the question, he knew that such an option was a dead-end.
Her expression didn't so much as shift a shade.
"…Our home and our security measures make it impossible to catch them off-guard inside."
Her voice was reduced to a whisper.
Elite families had elite security and surveillance measures to ensure that no ordinary measures of spying or getting dirt on them could possibly succeed.
On top of that, to try and leverage her abuse at the hands of her parents in a court was a losing battle, given that the Nelnmont Family was a powerhouse in the field of law, it would require another entity that was loaded with magicapita to possibly help her with her predicament.
"…What about the Elendir Institute of Magic?" Cæ's eyes lit up as a germ of an idea formed in his head.
His tone was one of hope.
And yet, it couldn't move her.
She shook her head with a dark expression as she patted her skirt. "…Even if the Institute was willing to interfere…"
Her dead tone was one of inevitability. "…it wouldn't be able to gather the evidence—"
"What if it could?"
He cut her off with a tone of anticipation.
His eyes wandered about as a solution, not just to her predicament but to their predicament, also emerged in his mind.
"What if the Institute could gather the evidence you need?"
He gazed at her with an anticipatory expression.
"What if a master mage specializing in divination herself leveraged her mighty power to gather the necessary proof of your abuse to set you free in a court of law?"
For the first time since he knew, her eyes widened with shock as she understood what he was conveying to her.
"…Headmistress Lenolia," she whispered with a stunned expression.
The air between them shifted.
The darkened atmosphere seemed to crack, allowing just the tiniest bit of light through.
If there was anyone with the power to gather the necessary evidence and proof to liberate Melia from the Nelnmont Family, it was none other than Headmistress Lenolia herself, touted as the Heart Seer due to her extreme mastery of divination, the field of acquiring information through magic.
A flash of life and hope seemed to enter Melia's dark eyes as she saw the first possibility of her escape from the tyranny of her parents.
"But…" A whisper of crumbling hope escaped her. "I am the daughter of her enemy."
Tears filled her eyes.
"Why would she ever help me?"
Cæ's eyes sharpened with certainty.
"She will help you as a student of her magicademy."
She gazed at Cæ with a stunned expression.
She wanted to believe him.
And yet…
Her eyes darkened.
"…It is impossible for me to escape."
Her tone was shaky.
"I'm sorry for wasting your time."
And just like that, she walked away from him.
She walked away from a hope that she couldn't bring herself to trust in.
And yet, Cæ was different.
His eyes sharpened with renewed determination as he inadvertently found a solution not just to Melia's problems, but also his own. He immediately rushed to Headmistress Lenolia's as fast as he could, breaking into a sweat as his breathing grew labored with strain.
The doors to her office flew wide open, drawing the Headmistress' attention as her eyes lit up with surprise at the person who had arrived.
"Headmistress Lenolia," he panted, gasping for air.
"Mr. Cæ…?" she frowned with a confused expression. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to have gone to the Colohen Slums for the talent acquisition projects?"
Cæ's expression grew serious yet jubilant once he collected his breath.
"I figured it out, Headmistress," he continued, ignoring her question. "I figured it out."
She stared at him with a peculiar expression. "…Figured what out?"
His dichromatic gray eyes lit up with vigor.
"The solution to end the legal battle," he declared. "To end it and emerge victorious."