CHAPTER 283: EXAM (5)

Outside the Headmistress’s chamber, the air felt strangely lighter.

Merlin took a slow breath, steadying his thoughts.

That encounter had confirmed two things: Morgana knew more than she was letting on...

And these "rifts" were not isolated.

He started down the marble stairs, deep in thought, when a voice called from behind him.

"Merlin!"

He turned, Elara stood near the entrance, still in her training gear, silver hair cascading down her shoulders.

Her expression shifted from relief to concern when she saw his face.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing important," he said quietly.

She frowned, stepping closer. "You’re lying."

He didn’t respond.

She sighed. "You do that a lot, you know. Pretend everything’s fine when it’s not."

A faint smile touched his lips. "Someone has to keep you from worrying."

Her ears twitched slightly at that, the faintest color rising in her cheeks.

But she didn’t argue.

"Let’s go," she said softly. "The others are waiting. They’re worried too."

Merlin nodded and followed her down the hall.

The rest of the group was gathered in the main common room, still buzzing from the ordeal.

When Merlin entered, conversation halted instantly.

Nathan was the first to speak. "You good?"

"Yeah," Merlin said. "Headmistress just asked questions. That’s all."

Liliana folded her arms. "That’s not all and we all know it, but fine."

Ethan leaned back with a grin. "As long as we’re not expelled, I’ll take it."

Seraphina, who had been silent until now, glanced up from her seat by the window. "They’ll keep this quiet," she said flatly. "If word spreads that the academy’s exam fields are unstable, every noble family in the capital will pull their kids out."

Nathan shrugged. "Then we just don’t talk about it."

Ethan snorted. "Sure. Easy for you."

Merlin stayed quiet, glancing out the window. The sun had already begun to set over the academy’s spires.

He could still feel the faint hum of that energy within him, like an echo from a dream refusing to fade.

And for the first time since he’d arrived in this world... he felt like something else was watching him back.

The night after the exam felt longer than usual.

The moon hung like a shard of silver glass above the academy’s towers, its light bleeding faintly into the marble corridors. Most of the students had gone to bed hours ago, but not Merlin.

He stood by the window of his dorm room, arms crossed, watching the city lights pulse faintly below. The faint hum of the mana circuits running through the academy’s wards vibrated through the walls like a heartbeat.

Normally, it was a comforting sound. Tonight, it wasn’t.

Because under that rhythm... was something else.

A faint, wrong pulse.

He closed his eyes, channeling a thread of wind mana through his hearing. The ambient vibrations sharpened, layers of sound separating like ripples across a pond.

And there, faint but unmistakable, came the echo of a mana signature he recognized.

Not Morgana’s.

Not any instructor’s.

It was the same energy that had twisted the rift in the forest.

The same unstable, corrupted tone.

He exhaled slowly, letting his mana fade.

So it hadn’t been just a wild anomaly.

It had been placed there.

He already knew who would do something that reckless.

After all, he’d read about them long before he ever fell into this world.

The Obsidian Veil.

A name that, in the novel, appeared only in the background, a rogue organization of humans obsessed with unraveling the natural limits of affinity.

They weren’t strong enough to rival the great guilds or noble families, but they were dangerous because they didn’t follow rules. They experimented on affinities, on people, trying to "merge" incompatible ones.

In the story, they’d been wiped out by a supporting character three arcs later.

But this wasn’t a story anymore.

And the timeline... was already changing.

Merlin muttered under his breath, "...They weren’t supposed to show up until the Third Year Tournament arc."

His reflection stared back at him in the window, golden eyes glinting faintly in the dark.

That meant the world wasn’t just reacting to his presence anymore.

It was rewriting itself around him.

A soft knock came from the door.

He turned, voice calm. "Come in."

The door creaked open, Elara stepped inside, her usual composure dimmed slightly by the faint worry in her expression. She had changed out of her uniform, wearing a loose academy robe, silver hair falling freely.

"You’re still awake," she said quietly.

"So are you," he countered with a small smirk.

She gave him a look that said don’t start.

"...You sensed it too, didn’t you?" she asked after a pause.

Merlin’s eyes narrowed slightly. "The residual mana?"

She nodded. "It’s faint, but it’s there. Whatever caused that rift wasn’t natural."

He hesitated for a moment. "Do the instructors know?"

"They’re pretending they don’t," she said. "I overheard two of them earlier in the eastern corridor. Morgana’s ordered silence. She doesn’t want panic spreading through the student body."

"Understandable." He looked back toward the window. "But dangerous. That energy doesn’t just vanish. It lingers."

Elara crossed her arms, watching him. "You know more than you’re saying, don’t you?"

Merlin’s gaze flicked toward her, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "You think too highly of me."

"I think realistically of you," she said flatly. "You’re hiding something."

He didn’t deny it this time.

Instead, he simply said, "It’s better if you don’t know yet."

Her expression hardened slightly. "You don’t get to decide what’s ’better’ for me."

He met her gaze, calm, steady. "No. But I’d rather you be angry at me than in danger."

That quieted her.

For a moment, the only sound was the wind outside and the faint buzz of the wards.

Then Elara sighed, brushing a strand of hair behind her pointed ear. "Fine. But if you disappear into another forest or rift again, I’m following you."

Merlin chuckled softly. "I wouldn’t dare stop you."

She turned to leave, but paused at the door. "Merlin..."

He looked up.

"Be careful. I don’t know what’s happening, but..." Her voice softened. "It feels like something’s changing."

He nodded once. "It is."

When she left, he stood there for a long while, staring at the moon.

Then, quietly, he reached into the drawer beside his bed and pulled out a small tablet, one of the academy’s encrypted devices used for accessing archives and communication.

He tapped the screen, bringing up the academy’s news grid and internal reports.

A simple search: Obsidian Veil.

No official record. No public acknowledgment.

Exactly as he remembered.

But hidden at the bottom of the internal log, buried in redacted data, was a note stamped with the crest of the Security Division.

"Unauthorized mana experiment detected at coordinates outside the southern examination field. Source: Unverified human group. Investigation pending."

He leaned back slowly.

So Morgana knew.

She just wasn’t saying it outright.

The report’s timestamp matched exactly with the moment the rift appeared.