Chapter 51 - 51: They’re good, aren’t they?
In the middle of the main hall of Sigrún's mansion, Erik could be seen sitting at the head table, accompanied by his wolves. They lay on either side of his chair, each over a meter tall, while Ebonique, measuring just over 30 cm, rested on the boy's head.
With a calm and casual attitude, Erik reviewed notes in his planner while eating cookies and sipping tea, as if just moments ago he hadn't faced an assassination attempt, much less killed someone in cold blood.
"Are you sure you don't need to talk about what happened, young master?"
A worried Seraphina sat near Erik, placing a beautiful porcelain teapot with gold decorations on the table. Despite everything going according to plan—even with the addition of several last-minute complications and the betrayal of the judge—Seraphina was a bit anxious about how Erik would react to the situation. However, the outcome was very unexpected for her.
From the start, the whole duel situation made Seraphina suspect that something else was happening behind the scenes. After a bit of espionage and investigation, she connected the dots and uncovered the entire plot, which she thought was quite foolish. Even without her at the university, it would never have worked.
The original plot, though it might have worked with a lot of luck on a regular disciple, was doomed to fail against her young master. After all, the 'great plan' those fools had devised was to humiliate him, break his image, and destroy his mentality, making him more easily manipulated. They believed this would create a need in him to prove his worth, something they could exploit to get rid of him more easily.
But her young master wasn't just anyone. He was a super-genius, at least comparable to her young lady, if not superior. This meant that in a one-on-one battle, he was unbeatable by anyone at the Ascended level, making it impossible to humiliate him. Moreover, unlike other young men, he wasn't so easily manipulated, rendering the rest of their 'great plan' impractical.
Even more inconceivable was the sudden shift to try to assassinate him at the university—something no one in their right mind would have considered. Even in the most unlikely scenario where it succeeded, there wasn't a single being in the galaxy who could protect the culprits from the retaliation of the Arcane Order.
Not to mention that Eleonora and Sigrún loved Erik more than anyone could imagine, to the point that they had spent obscene amounts of resources—so much that a similar expense would bankrupt many empires—along with years of research and work. They had pushed the youngest Masters in history beyond their limits to create a set of near-divine defensive artifacts to protect their beloved. This meant that Erik could stand still and let a Master-level attack him for an hour without suffering a scratch.