Nathan Modernson decided to listen to his uncle's advice and refrained from asking Henry and Lily to work together in extinguishing the explosions in the Pompeii Clan's remains. If he managed to persuade both of them to help and only have them know each other's part in the business on the day, it would be too late for them to turn down an offer they had already promised.
As he thought about this, Nathan wondered what his mother told him about these two figures. In her words, they were the two people that he was able to fully trust. However, according to the King, these two had somewhat of an irresolvable conflict with each other, which was also evident in Henry's concern about his contact with Lily when they first met.
After Nathan Modernson became the President of the Student Council, the spontaneous frequency of The Undefinable's tutoring sessions sharply decreased. One reason was probably that she didn't want to disturb his already busy schedule. The other reason, Nathan assumed, was that she ran out of things to teach him.
That's why even at the times she did come, they rarely did anything productive. Nathan would ask questions about the anomalies he noticed as he met more and more people, like why Genesis possessed combative abilities that could match Monica's as a light-element Rune Artist. The answer was that Light, in high capacity, carried heat, and condensing light energy to an extent that the heat would cause damage was the only method a Light-Element Rune Artist could engage in any form of combat. This, however, required such an immense amount of Elemental Energy to achieve. A regular human only had so much Elemental Energy stored in their body at once that ten beams would already burn it out.
At other times, Nathan would just listen to Lily rant about the most random things or share his plans for the academy's and his own future, so it didn't sound too fishy when Nathan asked a question seemingly out of curiosity.
"You know how you told me the Infinite Explosions in the Pompeii Clan's ruins are still duplicating themselves? Isn't it possible for you to disintegrate the energy and put a halt to it?"
Lily threw a pillow across the room for no reason whatsoever and laughed lazily, "Nope! That barrage of energy will keep generating more explosions the moment I deconstruct some. Why do you care?"
Nathan sighed and got up from his chair to pick the pillow back up. "I heard that the Pompeii Clan Manor is located in a basin as beautiful as paradise from a fairy tale, surrounded by natural hills, white roses and willow trees. I'm just thinking: If I can cease the explosion there and rebuild a manor with the Whitedawn Clan's aid… I can… have somewhere to call home again." Nathan sounded deliberately woeful with the last sentence, which effectively aroused a sense of guilt within Lily.
"Also, I'm getting married right after graduation. Can't afford not having a house prepared for that," he added with a more cheerful tone. After that shift of emotions, it was difficult for anyone who cared about him to reject his request.
"Wait, who are you marrying?" Lily jumped up in concern, though it only seemed funny with her childish form. She stared at Nathan like a mother disapproving of her son's reckless decisions and interrogated, "Which Clan is she from? Is she pretty? How good is her mastery in Rune Arts? What kind of a person is she? What do you love about her?"
"Hey, hey." Nathan lifted his hand to signal her to stop bombarding him with meaningless questions. "That's not the point here." He didn't expect Lily to react so intensely to this thoughtless comment. It didn't affect her in any shape or form.
"That IS the point here!" Lily argued, "You can't just go around and marry whoever you want! She needs to be suitable, reliable, calm-minded, courteous… all these CRUCIAL qualities!"
Nathan imagined putting these labels on Jennifer and laughed at the absurdity. "Why do you care about who I marry? You are not like my mom or anything."
"Well," Lily continued to argue, "Since your mom is too busy working to take care of her own son, it's only my responsibility as your…" She suddenly realised that she'd better keep what she was about to say a secret and covered her mouth.
Nathan noticed the questionable activity but decided to let it go. "As my mentor, I feel like that's breaching my personal life a bit."
"Okay," Lily calmed herself down and bargained, "You tell me who this girl is, and I'll help you with your house-building thingy, deal?"
"You just said you can't deal with it," Nathan provoked with a smirk.
Lily sighed and started scrambling her hair. "With the help of another person… I probably can."
"Who is it?"
"Uhh… You'll see on the day."
"Then I'll tell you who my future wife is on that day," Nathan almost began skipping across the room in happiness. It had been quite some time since he could solve a problem in such a relaxing fashion. "Deal."
Lily sighed again and jumped towards the window. "Let's hope that guy will help…"
It was relieving to hear that the quarrel between Lily and Henry was not as irresolvable as the King had described. If anything, it was probably Lily's disdainful attitude towards Viviana that triggered Principal Nox, who was literally known as her biggest fanboy. This made Nathan laugh again, now that he was alone in his room. Some conflicts in this world are truly laughable.
Meanwhile, in Henry Nox's office, the principal still stood on the edge of the large wall made out of glass, purposelessly looking down at the capital city of Runalond. Only when Lily suddenly appeared in his office without an invitation slip did he turn around with a faint smile.
"Liliana Modernson. What a surprising emergence." He whispered slowly, "I thought we would never see each other again."
"You thought so?" Lily shrugged, as arrogantly as always, but not with hostility. "You really thought so?"
"Hmm," Henry snapped his fingers and disappeared. The remainder of his sentence appeared at Lily's back, at the lone pair of sofas in the centre of the large, desolate room. "I guess with Nathan Modernson as the variable, I shouldn't have come up with such a foolish conclusion."
"Whatever." Lily sat down on the other side. Only her legs were too short to reach the ground.
"You know what I'm here for," she said as softly as she could. "What do you say? Gonna help the boy out?"
Henry lowered his head in silence.
Lily pressed on, "Come on, Henry! He's Viviana's only bloodline in the world. If you really do look up to her, then… then…"
Henry didn't move or reply. He stared at the empty ground below his feet, swallowing in difficulty.
"You can't stay in this room forever," Lily continued, though this time, she was infected by the indistinct sorrow in the atmosphere. "Just for this one time, alright? Do you still have something against me after all these… I don't even know how much it has been for you… hundreds of years?"
"Of course not." Henry shook his head without lifting it. "It's been… thousands of years, to say the least, for me."
"You know? Liliana, I don't have many hours left to live. I can't afford to leave this academy, if this room at all."
"So you decide to pretend like you already died, and never take another step outside?"
Henry sneered coldly, "Even if I get bored to death before it can happen, I have to see what Nathan Modernson can achieve in this world."
"What if Nathan Modernson could not achieve what he could have achieved if you didn't help him today?" Lily sounded as if she was begging him. "We can teleport you there. It won't take… more than five minutes of your precious life."
"If not for his sake, for my sister's sake," she added sincerely.
Henry finally looked up. He stared at the girl before him with unbelievingly wide eyes.
"Did you just…" He stuttered, a rare occurrence from Henry Nox's mouth.
"Yeah, I can't deny it forever, can I? I'm Liliana Modernson, Viviana Modernson's older sister," Lily uttered, "and Nathan Modernson's aunt. I know it's a selfish request to a dying man, but I promised my sister I'll take care of Nathan."
Henry used his arm to support himself. With another flicker of his body, he returned to his original position before the window.
"Since even you said so," he whispered, "I can't really escape my responsibilities either, can I?"
In a few days, Nathan and Lily convened before the debris of the Pompeii Clan Manor. It turned out that the information he got was not an understatement. Apart from the continuous, sweeping explosions caged within layers of barriers originating from the Tower of Development, the scenery had an unmatched serenity and splendour. It only made sense for the clan of the general who put the entire world under Runalond's siege to choose such a perfect spot to build a home. The only place that Nathan had seen that could top what he was seeing was the sea of daffodils in Agnes's memory. He promised himself to visit that place when his schedule could lend him some spare time.
As one of the Pathtower Spireheads, recruiting some Rune Artists who specialised in Teleportation Rune Art was far from a hassle for Lily. The construction of a teleportation device, even if it's only temporary, demanded the collaborative effort of a Rune Artist of every Elemental Trait other than light and darkness to transfer a physical body through space fully. In other words, ten specialists, five on each side.
Lily didn't explain to Nathan why Henry needed to be teleported here. He innocently thought that it was because the principal was too lazy and arrogant to travel by conventional methods, or perhaps he was just too lazy.
Even with such an abundant supply of Rune Artists, illustrating the runes took much longer than Nathan anticipated. It took many mistakes and reconstruction for the five runes to stack perfectly on top of each other, with no corner looking any different from the others.
When it was finally completed, the specialists confirmed with the other side that the device could be operated. The teleportation procedure finally began.
A dim light began glowing in the middle and slowly shaped itself into Henry's form. As it faded, Henry appeared, standing firmly with a deep resolve in his eyes, though that moment barely lasted a second before the man started to cough heavily. Blood leaked out from every opening on his face, tainting the grass below him and sinking deep into the earth.
Nathan gasped, thinking that there was something wrong with the teleportation runes, and rushed towards him, only to be stopped by Lily.
"Don't waste more of his time," she whispered in sorrow. "Every second now matters to him." Her voice was barely audible in the thundering explosions.
Henry didn't reply, steadying his husk from the uncontrollable shaking. He raised his arm quickly and began illustrating a large, complicated rune before him. His hand tensed to the point that blue veins became visible across his arm, yet the product was the most perfect rune that Nathan had ever seen.
It took him approximately three minutes to complete it and less than one second to activate it. The explosion inside the barrier froze, reducing itself to a dense fog of elemental energy ready to be extracted.
"Why did this happen?" Nathan yelled as his body shook with both anger and confusion. As the illustration process happened, he remained completely quiet to not distract the principal, but when that responsibility ceased to exist, all his suppressed emotions exploded.
Lily rose into the sky and began illustrating a pair of runes with both hands.
"I'll explain, but let me finish the job first."
The immense amount of Elemental Energy floated towards the red rune in Lily's left hand as the blue rune on her right hand grew ceaselessly. When all the energy was fully absorbed, the blue rune was already so large that it replaced the original sky.
Lily cried out powerfully and pressed her hand into the blue rune, pointing towards the sky. The Elemental Energy that was contained within now roared towards the sky like a colourful light beam. This process lasted for a long time, almost as long as the extraction, before the beam shrunk in size and eventually disappeared.
Nathan's mission was completed, yet there was no happiness or a feeling that a weight had been lifted from his chest. Every direction pointed him to a conclusion he couldn't escape from: Henry Nox's body would slowly disintegrate if he ever left the academy.
So when Lily descended back down and confirmed this theory, Nathan collapsed on his knees. His fists clenched in regret as he smashed them onto the firm ground.
Nathan hadn't cried ever since his brief visit to Lostburg. He didn't expect himself to lose control so easily again.
"Henry Nox was a genius in Rune Arts, one of the few that I can say is on par with me," Lily explained, murmuring to both herself and Nathan. "But fate is always tough on those with fortunate talents."
"He was diagnosed with a fatal disease, one that, no matter how long Rune Arts or technology develops, could never be cured. As the illness set in, his organs began melting into liquids one after the other. Fortunately for him, before that could happen, he spent an entire week without any sleep to construct a series of runes that covered the entire landscape of the Imperial Academy. Within its coverage, the aging of his body could be decelerated, and the illness could never kill him if he remained in the academy. If he remained in his office, where he slowed the entire area's time to an extent that it was barely flowing, he could technically live forever. This godlike ability came with a cost: To trade for the time he slowed, his brain's activity accelerated in the same proportion. In his mind, he had already lived for thousands of years, even though it had only been a year or two since he was diagnosed."
Nathan wanted to cry out in despair, to argue that if she told him earlier, he wouldn't have demanded that he help out, and that it wasn't even that important at all, but that only felt like a discredit to his sacrifice.
"After having your mind in clarity for thousands of years," Lily continued, "It's difficult for anyone not to lose it and just decide it was enough time in the world, but he wants to live until he can see what you can achieve in this Kingdom."
"You must have a deeper reason behind the desire to cease the Infinite Explosions here, so I thought it was better if it were done." She concluded apologetically. "Don't let him down."
Nathan remained silent. He knew that it was his fault.
All he did was vow spitefully to himself that he was going to change this world so much to the point that it eclipses Founder Gideon's achievement, for Lostburg, for the Salvation Club, and now also for Henry Nox, because this same resolve almost ended his life.
Nathan Modernson no longer had a path back. If he had any from the beginning, that was.