I bit my lip, turning the original story’s contents over in my head.
【Julianna watched Minister Edgar Crowe, holding her breath.
Ever since joining the Black Spoon Division, one thing about him had never sat right with her.
“Minister — you don’t actually care about the people suffering because of black magic, do you?”
“Ah, what makes you think that, Miss Crosswell?”
“Because you never take preventive measures. Even though you easily could.”
“…”
“It’s like you’re… waiting for the black magic surges to run their course. In the people who get afflicted.”
Julianna looked at the man, her eyes trembling with unease.
“…Because that’s when the core finally reveals itself.”
Only then did she finally understand.
What it truly looked like, the first genuine smile from a man who always smiled so prettily.
“How very interesting, Miss Crosswell.”
Just how much like a man possessed by madness he could look.】
Hah. There it was — the beginning of that “how interesting” arc!
Anyway, before leaving the interrogation room, I’d meant to ask the male lead something.
Whether he knew why the ringleader was after black magic cores in the first place.
But then he caught me from behind and it completely slipped my mind.
Before that, I’d been too busy watching the kidnapper thrash around to even think of it.
But now…
I shivered, without quite meaning to.
Wow, his body really was something.
The chest that had been pressed against my back — even through the shirt, I could feel exactly how firm, dense muscle it was.
And his hands had been so large, so solid. He’d smelled genuinely wonderful too, like musk.
Very on-brand for a romance-fantasy male lead, honestly.
Undercut by the horrifying flaw of “office worker running on nothing but overtime,” of course.
Caught up in thinking about the male lead’s body, I found myself sneaking a guilty look at Seamus.
This guy had gotten pretty banged up because of the whole case too.
Two bandages on his face, and his rolled-up sleeve showed a bandage wrapped around his forearm.
He got hurt saving Henry, too.
And since it was an injury from black magic, it was healing slower than it should.
“Seamus.”
“…What.”
“I want to say it again — thank you. Genuinely.”
“…What?”
“For saving my family. I’m really sorry you got hurt doing it.”
I’m not the type to only offer thanks with words and nothing behind it, for the record.
Once my salary comes in, I’m buying you a meal, no question.
But before I could even bring up dinner plans—
“Is family really that important to you?”
“I was gonna buy you a proper me— wait, what?”
Seamus looked me dead in the eye.
The most serious I’d seen him yet, and also…?
Why is he mad at me all of a sudden?
Why, though? Was he just annoyed he’d been the only one to get roughed up out there?
But Seamus dropped a genuinely unexpected bombshell instead.
“I don’t get it. They’re nothing but a liability holding you back.”
…Excuse me, why was this secondary male lead of a man suddenly going off on me?
Ever since being assigned to the Black Spoon Division together, Seamus had kept observing Leila Rowell the whole time.
I have her permission, after all.
From the moment she clocked in, through the morning’s work, through lunch, through the afternoon, all the way to when she clocked out.
And the longer he watched, the more a suffocating restlessness built up in his chest.
[Seamus, starting now, I’m going for a one-shot, two-kill.]
It had started with the whole Arthur Featherston affair.
Who would have thought she’d take down that mildly obnoxious neighboring team through nothing but a deal struck with the head of the Magical Herb Research Lab.
But it hadn’t stopped there.
[What are you looking into on your lunch break?]
[I already told you to go eat, Seamus.]
[Why are you organizing the Mage Knights’ Division security team’s data?]
If Leila Rowell hadn’t done that research.
If extra personnel hadn’t been sent to the 20th district as a result — what would have happened?
By this point, he couldn’t deny it any longer.
Leila Rowell was someone who could see remarkably far ahead.
I genuinely have no idea how far ahead she’s actually looking.
Even when the incident in the 20th district had finally broken, it had been the same.
[Hit the center of his forehead! You just have to make contact!]
Before he’d heard those words, Seamus had honestly been struggling.
If I’d tried to subdue him using my own judgment, I would have killed that child.
In the end, out in the field, he was worthless without Leila Rowell.
I can’t breathe right.
And yet the woman who’d reduced him to this thanked him for saving “just family.”
[If it’s not perfect, it’s worthless.]
Leila Rowell was the exact opposite of everything he’d ever been taught, and it filled him with a furious, maddening frustration.
“You could end up dragged down by that kid down the line. How can you even be happy about this?”
“Uh…? What?”
“A kid from your own orphanage just got hit with black magic. Blood relation or not, that’s a mark against you.”
What Seamus was saying was true.
Even if I try to climb the ranks, this will get thrown back at me eventually.
Julianna Crosswell had gone through exactly this.
Even after her innocence was confirmed, people still whispered that she must have some inherent cruelty in her, to have been targeted in the first place.
Which meant Leila Rowell would end up treated the same way.
“The smart move would be cutting ties with that kid. Why don’t you get that?”
“Hey, you—”
“You’re a pushover who keeps taking losses, Leila Rowell.”
That was when Leila’s eyes went dark, pitch black.
Is she about to hit me?
But contrary to what Seamus expected, she just let out a long sigh instead.
“Seamus. People go through different things, so it makes sense our values might differ, doesn’t it?”
“…And?”
“So even if it drags me down, I’d rather have family alive who’ll hold onto me. That’s just my preference.”
“But what if that Henry kid’s real family shows up someday and he forgets all about you? Would it still mean anything then?”
At that, Leila Rowell studied him for a long moment, then smiled.
Somehow, it looked like a sad smile.
“But Seamus, I’ll remember. I remember the people who pass through my life.”
“…”
Then Leila Rowell turned away and muttered something quietly to herself.
“Well, even if they don’t remember me. That’s just how work is, isn’t it…”
He didn’t ask what that meant.
I really can’t figure Leila Rowell out.
One moment she seemed far more capable than he was, and the next, foolish — and even when he threw rude questions at her, she never once got irritated.
I want to know what that last thing she said meant.
But she’d looked so sad saying it that he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
Which was why he felt relieved when Leila Rowell turned back to face him again.
“Oh, right! There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“…What now.”
“If someone were collecting a huge number of black magic cores, what do you think that would be for?”
“…? Cores?”
She really did ask the strangest things.
But somehow, it felt like he owed her a real answer, so he gave one honestly.
“Hm… I don’t know how many you mean, but black magic has a bigger wavelength than ordinary magic, right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“If you gathered over a thousand of something like that… you could probably build up enough force to break the laws of nature.”
“What?”
“Make possible what ordinary magic can’t.”
“Seriously?”
Her deep pink eyes, dead as usual, suddenly lit up, bright and sharp.
Seamus covered his face with a file folder and muttered.
“But that’s just theoretical. The odds of failure are way higher.”
“Why just theoretical? Has nobody at the Mage Tower ever tried it?”
“Because the price you’d have to pay is enormous.”
“Like what, for example?”
“It would take whatever matters most to the person casting it.”
Seamus fidgeted with his skull bracelet in his free hand, muttering.
“If the price ended up being your magical ability itself… there wouldn’t be much point in living anymore.”
“Hmm. I see… thanks.”
As Leila nodded, Seamus stole a glance at her sideways.
Not sad anymore, I guess.
For some reason, he regretted having pushed her earlier.
He almost wished she’d gotten angry instead, called him out for being too rude.
But then, why did he even care about the look on Rowell’s face in the first place?
That’s… because I need to know her weaknesses.
That’s how he’d bring her down, in the end.
That’s the only reason.
Playing mentor to my precious, high-maintenance coworker really makes me want to send an invoice.
No, forget it — I got information out of it, so let’s call it even.
That had all come from the future head of the Mage Tower himself, the secondary male lead, so it ought to be pretty reliable.
The mastermind, and now the Seres Order too, both after black magic cores.
What could they possibly be after? World domination?
What exactly were they trying to accomplish?
