[Corwin’s POV]

Corwin sat alone on the stone staircase, his back pressed against the cold wall behind him, the chill seeping through the fabric of his uniform. He was tired emotionally. Most of it because he was disappointed with how the evaluation turned out to be.

Beyond the stairwell, past the high-arched hallway and thick academy doors, laughter echoed from the cafeteria: bright, distant, and untouched by his presence. It sounded like a world he could see but never quite enter.

And perhaps, he preferred it this way.

When no one was around to glance at him, it became easier to pretend he belonged here.

In his hands rested a single piece of stale bread, rough at the edges, slightly hardened from sitting too long.

But it was enough to dull the ache in his stomach, at least for a little while. It was all he could afford, and all he ever had.

Bread for lunch, soup for dinner. That was the pattern.

His family had sacrificed everything, scraped together coins, skipped meals, sold heirlooms they couldn’t afford to lose, just to give him this chance of enrolling into this academy.

It had been his choice.

Corwin didn't come here to escape the life he was born into, but to repay it, because while he had known hardship, it was his mother and his father who bore the weight of it every day, who had swallowed pride and poverty in silence, and trading their last coin for Corwin’s future—for their future.

And then there were his younger siblings, who still went to sleep hungry some nights so he could chase something better.

Corwin closed his eyes.

Back then, the day his mana core awakened had been a miracle. He remembered the way his father had laughed—a rare, rumbling sound so full of joy it almost didn’t feel real and the way his mother had wept, holding his hands with such trembling relief.

And for that single moment, all of them had believed the impossible: that maybe, this was the start of a different life for them.

But belief, he would come to learn, was fragile.

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Because while others arrived with family tutors and bloodlines, with polished spells and guidance passed down through generations, he had came with nothing but hope and borrowed robes.

He had no mentor. No ancestral teachings or secret techniques written in hidden scrolls. Only a determination to learn, a quiet desperation to prove he wasn’t just a lucky peasant with a spark of mana.

He read alone, stayed up late, listened at the edges of information not meant for ears like his. He tried to mimic their gestures, their chants, the way their mana moved, but imitation could only carry him so far when he didn’t even understand the language they were using.

And then came the affinitas test.

He had dreaded it long before that day arrived, and had felt the heaviness of it in every heartbeat. He had prayed, pleaded, bargained with gods he didn’t even know if he believed in, for just one affinity.

Just one. It didn’t have to be powerful. It didn’t have to be impressive. It just had to be something.

But when Professor Edvoss had called his name, standing at the center of the ritual chamber with eyes cold as glass, the words that followed were like frost cracking across his chest.

“No affinitas.”

Two words that shattered the floor beneath his feet and let the whole world fall through.

Tears began to fall from his eyes.

‘Why am I not born talented? Why am I born as a commoner?’

The question itself is pitiful in its simplicity.

Some people open their eyes into the world already marked by brilliance. Their hands curve naturally toward the sword’s hilt, their lips to incantations smoother than butter. They do not wonder whether they belong, because belonging was a birthright.

And then there are the rest of the others.

‘Why not me? Why am I the one who must claw upward from mud, while others have the easy way? Why?’

His voice slips into the silence, hoarse and cracked, speaking to no one but the walls:

“Tell me, is this what fairness looks like? Is this balance? Is this justice?”

To ask ‘why he was not born talented’ is to interrogate fate, for why distributes gifts and burdens with no regard for justice.

It is less a question of fact, but an attempt to reconcile the unbearable truth that ability, like beauty, is unevenly dealt with, and that one’s life may be defined less by effort than by the absence of innate brilliance.

Talent, after all, is not merely a skill; it is a kind of preordained permission. Those born with it are permitted entry into worlds that others can only stand outside of, looking in.

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Corwin knew that better.

To be talented is to begin life already closer to the summit; to be untalented is to begin in the valley, where even the highest climb might never reach the foothills of another’s effortless ascent. It is a disparity that cannot be corrected by fairness, because fairness is not in the structure of the world—it is only in our yearning.

So, if talent is denied, what then defines a life? If brilliance is absent, must one settle for endurance as the highest form of dignity? And if so, is endurance enough?

Then, the silence of his thoughts returned. It neither comforts nor explains, but only confirms what was already known:

That life is uneven, that gifts are not earned but given, and that some are condemned to live in the shadows of others’ effortless light.

Although, there were other paths. Fields like mana engineering, magical research, or enchantment – all roads carved out for those without natural aptitude, but they were steep, brutal, and ruthless.

And while the academy claimed it welcomed all who worked hard enough, the truth was simpler: it welcomed those who could survive the climb without slipping.

He didn’t know if someone like him would be accepted in such paths, or if the doors would shut the moment he tried to knock.

But he knew that he couldn't go back.

He couldn’t face the look in his mother’s eyes if he failed. He couldn’t let his siblings grow up believing that magic belonged only to those born lucky. And he couldn’t make his father’s sacrifice meaningless.

And the tuition fees…

The thought alone was enough to break something loose in his chest. He lowered his head, eyes unfocused, and the world began to blur.

A warm dampness, unbidden and unwanted, slipped from the corners of his eyes and carved its quiet path down his cheeks.

His hands were shaking. The piece of bread crumbled under the pressure of his fists. His throat tightened. The knot that had taken root somewhere deep inside his chest, swelling upward until it pressed against his windpipe.

He wasn’t supposed to break here. Not now and where anyone could see. Not when he’d made it this far just by holding it all in.

But his body didn’t care. It shuddered beneath the weight of the unsaid. And then, suddenly – a violent cough ripped through his throat.

His hand shot to his neck in panic, fingers scrabbling for purchase against nothing, instinctively trying to pry the air back into his lungs. His body lurching as another coughing fit seized him.

‘Damn it.’

He had forgotten that he hadn’t bought any water.

The coughing worsened his vision and spinning with heat. His cheeks redden not just from the lack of air, but from the sheer, suffocating humiliation of it all.

And then, just as the edges of his vision began to darken, a shadow fell over him. Not an overwhelming one but deliberate, and still.

A pale hand entered his blurred line of sight, extended toward him with a water bottle held in steady fingers.

Then came the voice, cool like calm water.

“Here. Drink.”

Corwin’s gaze, still fogged by tears, lifted hesitantly. And through the haze, he saw the outline of a boy now standing in front of him—dark-haired, sharp-eyed, composed in a way that made the moment feel even more surreal.

‘Ruvian?’

The dark-haired boy watched him without judgment, as though waiting for Corwin to stop falling apart and take his offer.

Corwin immediately reached out with shaking fingers and took the bottle, feeling the cool plastic against his skin and without a word, brought it to his lips.

The water was cold. It slipped down his throat and carved away the pain, the roughness and the tightness. Leaving behind only the ache that had nowhere else to go.

‘Thank goodness. I almost died there.’ Corwin thought.

Lowering the bottle, he froze, torn between wanting to apologize, to express some broken version of gratitude, or to pretend this never happened at all.

But Ruvian spoke again before he could decide. His tone hadn’t changed. still calm, still dispassionate, but this time there was something more to it.

“Don’t waste your time feeling sorry for yourself.” Ruvian said. A brief pause followed, as if he were deciding whether to continue.

Then…

“The world won’t care or slow down for you. And if you sit here, sulking and clinging to a path that was never yours to begin with, you’ll be trampled underfoot, Corwin.”

Corwin’s hands clenched tightly in his lap, the sting of the words cutting sharper than anything cruel ever could, because they weren’t cruel. They were honest, not spoken to wound him, but to strip away the lies he had been feeding himself.

Ruvian’s gaze remained impassive, unreadable, but his next words were sharper.

“So what if you didn’t have any affinitas?”

The words struck Corwin harder than he expected with a force that came without hesitation.

“Let it go.” Ruvian said.

‘Huh?’

Corwin’s eyes lifted, searching Ruvian’s face for scorn, for pity. But he found neither. Only a burning certainty that refused to waver in his dark eyes.

And in those unnerving eyes, Corwin understood what Ruvian was trying to tell him by ‘letting it go’.

It was simple but at the same time contrary to what it sounds like. Let go of the path that was never meant for him and walk forward anyway.

Released the weight of what he wasn’t, so he could finally rise as what he could be.

In other words?

‘Don’t give up. And get up.’

That was what the messages behind Ruvian’s harsh words were.

His gaze bore into him, piercing, as if seeing straight through the fragile walls of hope Corwin had built around himself.

Corwin’s throat tightened.

A part of him wanted to argue, to say that being a mage was all he had ever wanted, all he had ever known. But another part… another part whispered that Ruvian was right.

Because no matter how desperately he wished otherwise, he wasn’t a mage and no amount of wishing would change that.

Ruvian turned away, ascending the stairs. But before disappearing, he left behind one final thought.

“Calm your mind first. Then decide, will you keep chasing a dead dream or will you actually do something with your life? If you have no answer, seek guidance.”

Then, without a backward glance, he was gone. Leaving Corwin alone with his thoughts. Alone with a choice he wasn’t ready to make. A bitter laugh caught in his throat, barely more than a whisper.

“That's… easy for you to say…” The words tasted like rust on his tongue, thick with resentment.

“At least you have an affinitas.”

His fingers curled into a fist, nails pressing into his palm as if the pain could anchor him, could hold back the tide of helplessness threatening to swallow him whole.

Ruvian’s words still echoed in his mind.

‘Even so…’

Corwin wanted to reject them. Wanted to throw them aside and bury himself in the comfort of denial.

He wanted to hate Ruvian for saying them so easily, so carelessly, like it was as simple as exhaling a breath.

‘…He’s right.’

But deep down, beneath the anger and the hurt…

He wanted to believe that Ruvian wasn’t just tearing him down, but giving him something to grasp onto.