For several days, Gaon Academy was on temporary suspension.

It was too difficult to resume the midterms, and too many facilities were damaged to continue normal classes.

My watch wouldn’t stop buzzing. I didn’t even have the energy to check the notifications.

Interview offers, TV show invitations—they were flooding in. How the hell did they even get my contact info?

If people find out later that I’m the “Silent Ghost,” my head’s already hurting just thinking about it.

“God, this is exhausting.”

I had to make the most of my time.

The ten-year plan had completely collapsed, but I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.

So for the past five days, I dove into dungeons without pause. Starting with the easiest ones.

None of them held top-tier items, but they were useful to collect in advance.

Some were for me, some for the girls.

I piled them carelessly in the corner of the room and opened my notebook.

It was the new plan I’d been tweaking bit by bit.

I’m the kind of person who prefers writing things out instead of just sorting them in my head.

The moment scattered thoughts are put into words, the flow comes together.

The core of the original plan had been simple.

“All-in for Sung Siwoo, by Sung Siwoo, for Sung Siwoo.”

That wasn’t an option anymore.

Now that it was impossible, I had to redistribute.

Priority number one was, obviously—

Me.

I’d absorbed a Fragment and even taken Iano’s elixir.

Most of the fated opportunities that should have gone to him—it made sense for me to take them now.

I had to become his substitute.

But the problem was, I couldn’t make use of all those opportunities.

Some were fundamentally incompatible with me.

That wasn’t something I could overcome through effort.

Mana.

Sung Siwoo had been born with an extraordinary mana capacity. I’d supplemented mine through the elixir, but the nature was different.

Mine was refined and honed, whereas Sung Siwoo’s mana simply overflowed.

That meant the powerful opportunities tailored to support his massive mana pool—were never even considered for the supporting characters.

No matter how talented they were.

No matter how much potential they had—

They had to be excluded. Everything had to go to him, so there was nothing left to share.

Now, I had to find someone to inherit the opportunities I couldn’t use.

Someone to catch the overflow.

I reviewed the options I had previously discarded.

Among them were some strong candidates.

People with naturally high mana reserves, but overshadowed by Sung Siwoo.

And honestly, it didn’t take long to make the choice.

Yoon Chaeha.

A student from Kalos Academy—not Gaon.

Her traits overlapped too much with Sung Siwoo’s, so I had ruled her out from the start.

But her specs were solid.

She had top-class talent in magic, and enough drive to grow on her own.

Given time, she’d naturally rise to the top tier.

But—

I decided to accelerate her growth.

As one of the new main characters.

Conveniently, Gaon had just played a new card.

While the academy was temporarily closed, they quickly announced a program to compensate for the disrupted curriculum.

“The Arena of Exchange.”

It was a yearly program typically held for first-years around this time, but this year it had been moved up early.

A student exchange between the world’s number one academy, Gaon, and Korea’s number two, Kalos.

After passing a minimum qualification check, students could freely cross over and take classes at the other academy.

The official reason was “mutual educational enhancement.”

But in reality, it was more like a trade fair for exchanging talents suited to each academy’s taste.

Gaon excelled in close-quarters and melee combat, while Kalos held its own in specialized magic.

In fact, magic students often listed Kalos as their first choice.

Students gifted in physical combat trickled toward Gaon, and vice versa.

It was a win-win system, designed to turn weaknesses into strengths.

And here—this was the important part.

In the original story, the powerful option named Yoon Chaeha might transfer to Gaon. Or she might not.

The condition was:

Sung Siwoo had to exceed a certain threshold in recognition and performance.

But meeting that bar was absurdly difficult.

If he passed it, she would become intrigued by him and transfer to Gaon.

Purely out of interest—there was never any romantic development.

But—

If he failed to meet that standard of recognition and performance?

She wouldn’t take interest. She’d stay in Kalos until graduation.

In other words, she wasn’t a recruitable character in the original game.

But now, Sung Siwoo was dead, and I had done all the work.

And it seemed... that work had drawn quite a bit of attention.

Meaning: from this point on, all I had to do was watch.

“...Will she come over?”

I figured the odds were around 80%...

I really hoped she would.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

I turned my head toward the corner of the room.

There, a pile of glittering artifacts waited.

I smiled.

There’s a lot I can give you, friend.

So come.

***

Kalos Academy, first-floor club room.

Her golden hair, soaked in sunlight, shimmered even more brightly where it caught the rays pouring through the window.

A radiance that could blind.

Ju Seojun squinted without realizing.

But she, in stark contrast to her dazzling hair, kept her eyes fixed only on the computer screen.

A brief silence.

Then she finally spoke.

“Ju Seojun.”

“...What.”

On the screen, the same scene repeated: a massive serpent, and five clones slicing its head off all at once.

Still staring, she shifted her posture.

She leaned deep into her chair.

Crossing her legs in stockings, she lazily flicked one foot.

Ju Seojun didn’t know where to look.

But she didn’t seem to care in the slightest as she spoke again.

Her finger pointed at the screen.

Her orange /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ eyes flared with brilliance like a sun.

“Can you do this too?”

Eyes that dismantled and analyzed all forms of magic.

But no matter how thoroughly she calculated.

No matter how precisely she broke it down.

This attack couldn’t be analyzed.

The question caught Ju Seojun off guard.

Can I do that?

He watched the footage for a moment.

This is...

To divide mana with that level of precision, then unleash it with perfect timing—that wasn’t something even most high-level mages could manage.

Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say no.

“...I’d have to run the numbers first.”

“The loss rate during flight, control difficulty due to velocity shifts, and calculating the optimal impact point based on trajectory...”

“So what’s your conclusion?”

She cut him off, clean and sharp.

“What...?”

“The conclusion.”

She pressed the question, directly and without hesitation.

“...Yeah, I don’t think I could.”

In the end, he confessed.

“Hmph...”

For a moment, the corner of Yoon Chaeha’s lips curled slightly.

Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Same here.”

Even after seeing it with her own eyes, she still couldn’t understand it.

She couldn’t begin to imagine how much time and effort had gone into attaining that level of micro-adjustment.

And the fact that someone capable of that was the same age as her—made it even more unbelievable.

Yoon Chaeha casually turned her eyes.

Her gaze landed on a poster pinned to one side of the desk.

“Arena of Exchange.”

The Kalos professors had been briefing them about it for days now.

The name made it sound like a friendly student program—

But in reality, the message was clear:

“If you don’t like magic, go to Gaon.”

Within Kalos, there was a subtle tendency to look down on warriors.

On the surface, it looked like they gave students a choice, but in truth, the school policy was pushing physical combat students toward Gaon.

Of course, even outstanding magic-focused talents like Yoon Chaeha had received the information.

But back at admission, Kalos had offered her a full scholarship and a direct link to the Magic Tower.

A proposal no other school would offer—a deal perfectly tailored for a mage.

They must’ve thought it was impossible for her to consider Gaon.

Yoon Chaeha smiled faintly.

“Boring.”

To her, none of the offers Kalos made held any appeal.

Still smiling without even blinking, she stared straight through the poster.

Ju Seojun, who had known her for fifteen years, felt a deep, instinctive sense of dread.

Whenever she wore that expression, she always made decisions that went completely off-script.

“...Hey. You’re not seriously—”

It didn’t take long for his fears to come true.

“This won’t do.”

She stood up abruptly and grabbed the poster.

“I’m transferring to Gaon.”

Ju Seojun’s jaw dropped.

She was Rank 5 at Kalos.

And—he was Rank 1.

“What about you?” she asked, glancing back.

He let out a long sigh.

“...Unbelievable.”

But his answer was already decided.

As she turned to the monitor with a radiant smile like the sun, he knew.

He never stood a chance against that smile.

“Do whatever you want...”

And so, that was the moment the two of them began their journey to Gaon together.

***

And at that very moment, somewhere beyond reality—

To be precise, in a place severed from the world—

A cold wind blew.

A deep, dark space. Still as if even time had stopped.

A massive hollow chamber.

A man in black robes stood with his eyes closed.

As he drew in a breath, a dark celestial body floated before him.

Stars swirled, planets traced out orbits, drawing streaks of light.

A river of endless meteors flowed, planets scattered in chaotic motion with no discernible order.

And within that vast flow, one massive light flickered.

A cold star, radiating a piercing blue light.

A star that had lost its sun wandered endlessly in search of a new one.

And then—

Somewhere, hidden and crouching in silence, the sun stared at that frozen star in fascination.

Cautiously, ever so slowly—

It approached.

And the star, as if it had been waiting, welcomed it.

A sun that had never risen,

Now, would boldly follow the star and carve a new path.

The man’s lips slowly parted.

“...Yes.”

This was a rewritten timeline.

A changed world line.

And the flow that had begun—

Would never stop.

—KUUUUUUUUUUUNG.

The massive stone gate within the hollow chamber began to creak open.

From within, demons cloaked in darkness began to crawl out.

The man rose slowly from his seat. The spear in his hand let out a chilling hum.

“That’s it.”

The sun now walks with the star.

And this new sun, unstoppable in its rise—

Will become a fire demon,

A calamity that will consume them all.