Magic Academy's Bastard Instructor

Chapter 256: Iron Lotus [2]

“Wake up, Princess Irene.”

Irene opened her eyes at once. Starved and neglected for days, her throat was dry, and her body felt dangerously weak, yet this was the first time she found the strength to move.

Franz had not come. Vanitas had not come either. For reasons she could only guess at, they had both abandoned her completely, never once visiting her cell in the past few days.

“Anas… tasia?”

Standing just beyond the bars was Anastasia Gambino. The daughter of Vincenzo Gambino. The sole heir of the Gambino Crime Family.

These days, the Gambino name had become almost synonymous with Vanitas Astrea. Irene did not allow herself to hope. If Anastasia were here, then she would most likely be sent by Vanitas himself to finally put an end to her.

Bang——!

But contrary to her expectations, sparks and smoke exploded across her peripheral vision. The sound echoed through the corridor before the dust settled, and only then did Irene realize that the cell door had been blown open.

“Stand up, Princess.”

Irene looked up weakly. “…What are you… doing?”

“Breaking you out. That’s what.”

“Why?”

“Because the people need you.”

Unbeknownst to Irene, while she had been imprisoned under the Imperial Palace, the tide of public opinion had shifted.

The nation that had once driven her out now mentioned her name with regret. What had once been condemnation turned into doubt, then into suspicion, and finally into belief.

People began to think that something had been wrong all along. That the nobility had hidden the truth. That Irene Barielle Aetherion had been deliberately painted as a villain so others could wash their hands clean.

And now, at last, the truth had taken hold.

That she had been a victim this whole time.

But no matter how much Anastasia tried to explain, Irene refused to believe her.

“S-Stay away from me…!”

Facing betrayal after betrayal had warped her entire perspective. By the time Vanitas Astrea turned his back on her, the last thread Irene was holding on to finally snapped.

Irene no longer believed that goodwill existed in this world anymore.

She tried to draw upon her power, only to realize that the mana cuffs binding the flow of energy through her veins were still in place.

Anastasia let out a sigh and stepped forward. Irene instinctively scrambled back until her shoulders hit the wall.

Without saying a word, Anastasia crouched down and shattered the cuffs.

“I don’t mean you harm. We need to leave before Vanitas returns.”

“…Are you betraying him?”

Irene’s eyes trembled with terror as she looked up at Anastasia.

“Betraying who?” Anastasia said. “He’s the one betraying Aetherion, together with the Emperor. Both of them need to be stopped.”

“….”

They moved through the halls of the Imperial Palace in silence. Bodies of knights and guards lay scattered along the way, some lifeless, others burned to a crisp.

Anastasia had shown no mercy. These days, it had been the Gambino Family that kept order in the underground districts of Aetherion, and this was the power of her authority.

They came to a halt in front of a waiting car. A butler stepped forward and opened the back door. Without a word, the two of them got inside.

Anastasia handed her an envelope.

“What is this?”

“I’m not good with words,” Anastasia replied. “So I prepared something that would suffice.”

Irene opened the envelope and began to read. Her eyes moved across the page, line by line. The more she read of the contents, her brows furrowed, then lifted, before her eyes widened entirely.

In essence, the letter detailed a request from a revolutionary uprising. They had reached out to the Gambino Family to free Irene, intending to place her at the head of their movement.

Their goal was open revolt against the Emperor, Franz Barielle Aetherion, and his right hand, Marquess Vanitas Astrea.

The group was made up of the working class and members of the lower nobility. In return for Irene’s leadership, they promised their full support in the destruction of the Council of Nobles.

If circumstances allowed, they were even willing to see her seated upon the throne as the next ruler, on the condition that the entire ruling class be completely dismantled and that the new state be rebuilt as a full democracy.

“Is this real?” Irene asked as she turned toward Anastasia.

“It’s all authentic,” Anastasia said. “The Gambinos have been appointed as one of the spearheads as well.”

“…What if Vanitas finds out?” Irene asked. “You… your family won’t be safe…”

Just the thought of Vanitas sent a chill down her spine and fear crawling through her chest.

Irene had been locked away for nearly a month, making her unaware of the flow of current affairs, but the fact that none of the Great Powers had made a move at all told her something was deeply wrong.

“It’s fine,” Anastasia said. “We’re taking a risk, but the Gambinos are not fools. As much as we owe the Astreas, Vanitas Astrea owes us as well. He will suspect us, of course, but my father will never let it show.”

“When they return, they will come looking for me.”

Anastasia met her gaze intently. “And by then, you will have enough power to fight back, Princess.”

* * *

“Ever seen ships before?”

“Hell nah. First time I’ve even seen the sea.”

“How old are you again?”

“Twenty-three.”

That was the reality for most people who did not live within the Dominion. For them, the sea was nothing more than a concept, a thing spoken of in books or half-remembered stories.

Oceans were contaminated with Cthulhus. Horrors that made open waters a death sentence rather than a horizon of freedom.

There were no fishing villages, seaside towns, or merchants boasting of ports. Ships existed only as military tools or sealed transport vessels.

And yet, standing there now, it was hard to deny its pull.

The surface stretched like dark blue hues merging with the sky until the boundary disappeared. Waves rose and fell, indifferent to empires and the monsters hidden under their surface.

It was terrifying, yes, but there was a sense of beauty in that indifference. The sea did not care who ruled the land, nor did it judge the living for their failures.

It simply existed.

For a moment, the thought surfaced that perhaps this was why people once loved it.

Because it reminded them how small they were, and how vast the world truly was.

“What do you think, Vanitas?” Franz asked. “If one day people could cross the sea freely, what kind of things would we uncover? Could there be another continent out there, with settlements like ours?”

Vanitas did not answer right away. His gaze scrutinized the horizon, where the sky dissolved into the ocean, and nothing marked the boundary between the two.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps there is nothing waiting for us at all.”

Franz chuckled. “That’s a bleak way of seeing it.”

“It’s a realistic one.” Vanitas crossed his arms. “People tend to romanticize what lies beyond because they are tired of what lies behind.”

“And yet,” Franz said, “if no one ever crossed it, we would never know.”

Only then did Vanitas realize something he had never questioned before. In the game’s narrative, nothing had ever been written about what lay beyond the sea since the story never ventured past it.

The world began and ended on the continent they inhabited, as though everything beyond the horizon had been erased.

“The scouts are heading out now.”

They turned toward the distance, where a ship was pulling away from the shore, led by its captain. The vessel grew smaller with every passing moment as it moved toward the open sea.

Vanitas looked up.

“….”

The sky was empty, devoid of birds or seagulls, save for a single one circling far above. It fluttered in place, as if suspended there on purpose. For a brief moment, it felt as though its gaze was fixed on him.

Then it finally turned and flew off, trailing after the departing ship.

That day, the scouting vessel never returned.

And with it, no information ever came back.

Later, five search ships were dispatched in response. When the expedition concluded, only two vessels returned.

The reports that followed were grim. Every ship that was sent that day and never returned had been sunk, and those that made it back had lost many of their men. The surviving ships were left so heavily damaged that they were deemed unusable.

But there was one report that stood out from the rest.

“Limbs… they had limbs… and they were headed in this direction…”

Whatever had claimed the sea was not content to remain there.

They were moving toward the land.

The ocean rumbled, as though the earth’s plates shifted. The sky quaked in response. Across the continent, the ground began to tremble.

Many of the men on land tried to find something to grab onto as they stood atop the wall, working as borders that separated land from sea.

Given how vast the land was, keeping track of everything proved impossible. The Admiral and Vice Admiral fleets split apart. Each ship moved to its assigned post across the ocean to cover as much ground as possible.

Iridelle Vermillion’s vessel advanced the farthest. As the strongest among the Bundesritters, her ship pushed deep into open waters, claiming a wider stretch of the sea than any of the others.

“That Karina girl… she’s aboard that ship, isn’t she?” Franz asked, his gaze fixed on Iridelle’s vessel.

“I suppose so.”

“You sound rather sentimental.”

“She was my first student, in her own way. I find her quite precious.”

“I was under the impression she couldn’t stand you.”

“She still doesn’t,” Vanitas admitted. “But that doesn’t change how I see her. To me, she’s just a girl who never had a choice. Quite pitiable, if I’m being frank.”

“Is it because she looks like my mother?”

“….”

“To be honest, I try not to think about it,” Franz continued. “But it feels truly strange you harbored such feelings toward my mother.”

“It’s complicated, Franz.”

“Do you have some kind of mother issues?”

“…My entire family is an issue.”

Franz let out a quiet chuckle and leaned back against the wall.

“She wasn’t as remarkable as you imagine. If you were taken in by her charm, then you’re no different from the men who fell for my mother’s schemes.”

“I’m aware.”

“The heart really is a strange thing,” Franz said after a pause. “Still, I’m glad you seem to have found someone of your own. Margaret Illenia.”

“Yes. I don’t deserve her.”

“Now, now. Don’t say that,” Franz replied. “If she heard you, it would sound less like humility and more like disrespect toward the person who chose you.”

The waves continued to crash below.

“You give people too little credit,” Franz continued. “Margaret is not blind, nor is she foolish. If she chose you, then she did so knowing enough.”

“You must miss your wife dearly.”

“I do.” Franz’s voice softened. “I never thought I would move on from Alianna. And yet, here I am, haunted by the ghosts of my former fiancée and my late wife.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Losing both of them?” Franz let out a breath. “Of course it does. It hurt so much that, at some point, I simply stopped trying to care.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The wind carried the scent of salt and iron, and the sea below rolled on.

At that moment, Franz turned to look at Vanitas.

“I just received word from one of my puppets. It seems Irene has finally escaped.”

“Then it begins.”

“Yes,” Franz said with a nod. “It does. I never thought I would ever look forward to seeing what my little sister could achieve. But I suppose this will be her evaluation.”

He paused, his eyes narrowing slightly before continuing.

“Whether she truly deserves to sit on the throne.”