Chapter 64

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Translated by Sylph

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net.
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Evi, who had washed her body and changed her clothes faster than usual, looked at the bed again.

“One, two, three, four…”

Evi counted the number of cute accessories and toys on top.

“Seventeen…”

She couldn’t close her mouth at the unbelievable number.

‘What should I do?’

Yesterday was enjoyable all day long.

Although she was briefly scared when she lost the professor in the middle, she still had more good memories.

Watching the events from the professor’s arms, eating lots of delicious things, and even winning a prize by doing a drawing with money for the first time!

With just that, she was sufficiently happy. To the point that she thought she could endure everything even if hard things happened later, just by thinking of yesterday.

‘Should I return them?’

But no matter how she looked at it, these weren’t things Professor Sian could use.

If a pinned ribbon like this were placed on sparkling, fine-textured golden hair that was different from Evi’s own.

“Puh.”

Evi ended up laughing without realizing it.

As expected, no matter how much she thought about it, even if she returned these, it didn’t seem like Professor Sian would be able to use them.

‘For now, I should give him my thanks.’

Since that was the only thing she could do.

Evi placed the things that were on the blanket neatly beside the mana stone.

When she first entered the Gifted Center, there was nothing on this nightstand.

But now, from the mana stone to the hairpins. It was full of various items.

She was so happy that she still couldn’t believe they were all hers.

“Hehe…”

Evi, who was wearing a pleasant smile, carefully touched the gifts she had received and then headed outside.

It was burdensome to have received this much, but she still felt good after all.

* * *

When she went downstairs, the employees who had come to work early were standing there.

As she approached them to greet them, there was someone she encountered after a long time.

‘It’s Director Seraphina.’

She, who was talking about something with the employees, turned around at Evi’s presence.

“Hello…”

“Ah, you’re awake!”

Seraphina acknowledged Evi as if she had been waiting and approached her.

Then she leaned over and said in a small voice.

“Did you sleep well? Professor Sian brought you back yesterday. Since this is the girls’ dormitory, he couldn’t enter, so I, who happened to be in the lobby, took you to your room.”

So that’s how it happened.

“Thank you.”

Evi also bowed her head deeply to Seraphina.

“Ah, and… Professor Sian will be away on a business trip for the time being, so he won’t be able to come to the professor’s office. So if you have a letter to deliver, please give it to me.”

At that time, Evi, who was listening quietly to Seraphina’s words, asked her a question with a puzzled expression.

“Is Professor Sian a person higher than you, Dean?”

“Hmm? Why did you suddenly think of that?”

“Well… because you kept calling him Professor and ‘that person’…”

“Ah.”

At Evi’s words, Seraphina realized her mistake.

Because she held the position of Dean, she just called other old professors ‘professor’, but since the other party was the Emperor, she had ended up using honorifics unconsciously.

“Oh my, perhaps because we were close in the past, I ended up calling him that. I made a mistake. I should be careful from now on. Thank you for letting me know.”

Seraphina tried to put her hand on Evi’s head to stroke it while glossing over her words appropriately. At that moment.

“…?”

She pulled her hand away quickly as if surprised and looked at Evi for a moment.

Then Seraphina’s gaze headed toward the back of Evi’s hand.

“Dean?”

When Evi tilted her head, wondering why Seraphina was doing this, Seraphina smiled awkwardly and took a step back.

“It’s nothing. More than that, you, by any chance, when you were young…”

“Eviiiiii!”

At that time, along with a loud voice, a girl with fluttering silver hair ran into the dormitory.

“I’m back!”

“Irene!”

Even though they had been apart for only about two and a half days, the two embraced as if they had met someone they hadn’t seen for a long time.

While other employees watched the scene warmly, Seraphina slipped away from the spot.

* * *

“Huwa…”

Returning to the Director’s office, Seraphina flopped down on the large bed she had brought in while ignoring everyone’s opposition.

“Phew, I did well to put in a bed.”

Because otherwise, she would have had to lie down on an uncomfortable sofa.

She suddenly became sad about her situation. What was the use of being praised as the Dean of the Gifted Center or whatever.

When her fate was to suffer from overtime work and eat and sleep at her workplace like this.

Perhaps because it was the newly reopened Gifted Center, there was a crazy amount of work.

‘I have to prepare for the library’s reopening, and I have to organize the professors’ power struggles…’

In addition to that, wasn’t there also Professor Malles’s ‘hand over the classroom’ attack?

Of course, she gave him the classroom and made him sign a slave contract to be the head professor.

‘Of course, the hardest work is something else.’

She raised her hand.

The faint magic power existing in the air scattered a light glow around her hand and caused a breeze.

“My teacher is one thing, but shouldn’t I also raise my own successor?”

After clenching and unclenching her hand a few times, Seraphina sighed and muttered.

It wasn’t a delusion. Since returning to the Gifted Center, she had been continuously sensing someone else’s magic power.

“Perhaps because I’ve been hanging on to it all day, I almost made a mistake earlier as well.”

A moment ago, when she put her hand on Evi’s head, she had felt a very faint magic power.

But soon after, she guessed where that power came from.

“That damn mana stone…”

She thought of the mana stone she had seen in Evi’s room last night.

The one that had a wavelength almost similar to Lilian’s power. And the one the Emperor had given to the child as a gift.

Because it was placed there, a clear magic power that Seraphina could mistake for a moment was felt in the room.

“It’s only natural that more magic power is felt since she sleeps with it by her side every day.”

Even while muttering so, she remembered that she had unconsciously tried to see the back of Evi’s hand.

It was because she felt like she could strangely sense the power of the Imperial family among the magic powers.

“What am I doing, really.”

Was it because of the conversation she had with Clois before?

The moment she felt power similar to Lilian’s, she was even looking for the characteristics of the Imperial family in the child.

‘I can see why His Majesty kept delaying the opening of the Gifted Center.’

She herself keeps trying to find traces of Princess Evbien from the children, so how would the Emperor be?

“Huu…”

Thinking of the Emperor who returned holding Evi yesterday, Seraphina let out a long sigh again.

His appearance of being cautious as if he were carrying the weakest thing in the world.

She could guess whose memory he was thinking of while acting that way, so she couldn’t even scold him for what he was doing returning so late after taking the child out.

‘It’s a relief that Evi Alden is not a child who tries to catch His Majesty’s eye like other children.’

Looking only at yesterday’s appearance, she wondered if he might immediately bring Evi in as his adopted daughter instead of Arcel or Ruska.

“Uh, but it’s somewhat plausible?”

Is it because both of them are blond? Because the Emperor’s appearance returning while holding the child yesterday was the image of a father to anyone who saw it.

“No. Forbidden from idle thoughts.”

Seraphina thumped her face against the pillow and then sat up.

This was not the time to be having such idle thoughts.

She scattered her magic power over the entire Gifted Center again.

If another mage used power somewhere other than her, she would be able to know immediately.

‘I have felt the aura of magic power a few times.’

And its frequency was gradually becoming shorter.

“Someone’s magic power is gradually awakening.”

It was a natural flow.

Once the power appears, its manifestation cycle gradually becomes shorter.

There was also a way to make this manifestation cycle even shorter and quickly lead them to becoming a mage.

That was to encounter a situation where they felt their life was threatened.

“But if I did such a thing to children, I would remain in the records as a legendary child abuser.”

Perhaps she would be stoned to death in the capital square. She refused such a future.

Pondering if there was a better way, she flopped back down on the bed.

“Well… there’s no need to rush, anyway.”

Children are safe as long as they are inside the Gifted Center anyway.

Furthermore, it’s only a matter of time before it’s revealed.

So she would soon be able to know who the owner of that power was.

Seraphina closed her eyes and tried to recall the powers she had felt.

If magic power were perfectly manifested and at the same time the Imperial Crest appeared…

“Uh?”

Seraphina jumped up, surprised by her own thought.

Even while knowing that there was no one who possessed both of those powers together, why did she keep thinking as if it would naturally appear?

And why on earth did the image of Evi Alden come to mind at the same time?