Vergil's breath trembled.
Light and shadow folded around him, warping reality into rippling color. The scent of ink and lavender drifted through the air as walls of ancient wood rose around him, lit by floating crystal chandeliers. The insignia of a falcon's eye—Vaeloria Academy's symbol—watched from above.
This was where Elvira had found her purpose.
Where she became The Professor.
She stood at the gates now—not the girl from Thaelon, but a woman shaped by years of silence and steel. Her long silver hair was tied in a loose bun. A deep violet robe, woven with silver threads of enchantment, marked her as a high-ranking instructor.
She exhaled as her boots touched the polished floor.
She was home.
---
The first year was difficult.
Despite graduating near the top of her class from Thaelon, she wasn't instantly welcomed. Not because she lacked skill—she possessed more knowledge than most senior mages—but because she wasn't what they expected.
She wasn't loud.
She didn't show off.
She didn't crave recognition.
She taught calmly. Deliberately. With a patience that unsettled her flashier colleagues.
Her first class was full of skepticism—some respectful, others defiant.
But she greeted them all the same.
"Magic is not about power. It's about choice," she said, drawing glowing blue sigils midair with a flick of her chalk.
That day, she spoke about the soul imprint—the resonance between a mage's will and their mana.
Not a single student yawned.
She didn't dazzle them.
She captivated them.
With stories. With failures. With restraint.
She taught not just spells, but discipline. Wisdom. Self-control.
One student stood out: a tall boy with jagged black hair and unstable mana. His energy leaked constantly—untamed, violent.
Elvira didn't push him away.
She saw herself in him.
"Stop fighting it," she told him once. "Mana isn't a beast to cage. It's a current. Flow with it."
By year's end, he could conjure storms that danced between raindrops—never harming a leaf.
This place is full of monsters, Vergil thought. I can see people casting four- to five-circle spells already. There are other things that interest me—but they seem to specialize in different ways.
---
But life at the Academy wasn't limited to lectures.
There were duels. Banquets. Research councils. Faculty meetings.
And that was where she met Ardin Hale.
An aura user. Sword instructor. Blunt. Sharp-tongued. Rough around the edges.
He wasn't graceful like the other professors. He didn't quote old masters or use poetic metaphors. He taught through movement and instinct.
They clashed constantly.
She'd criticize his inefficient energy control.
He'd mock her theories as useless in real combat.
"You overthink everything," he told her once.
"You don't think enough," she replied.
They were oil and water—until they were forced to work together.
It happened during a student expedition to the Hollow Pines.
They were both assigned as monitors.
No one expected a demon. A high-ranked one at that.
Malformed. Fast. Hunger incarnate.
The students froze.
Elvira reacted first—layering barriers and illusions in a single breath.
Ardin charged, aura blade burning, his left arm crushed by a swipe, but his stance never faltered.
Together, they fought.
Together, they killed it.
When it was over, they sat beneath a tree. Her magic stitched his shattered arm. His blood stained the grass.
"Didn't expect a mage to throw herself in front of a demon," he muttered.
"Didn't throw myself for you," she said. "You just happened to be in the way."
He grinned through the pain.
"Marry me, then."
She scoffed.
But her heart fluttered.
That was unexpected, Vergil thought. I've never seen someone propose on their first real conversation.
What followed wasn't some storybook romance. It was slow. Messy. Real.
They argued. Debated. He left swords on her bookshelf. She left scrolls in his training hall. They shared long silences beneath starlight.
He was fire.
She was stone.
But somehow… they made it work.
He asked her properly one night beneath the glowing arcane tree at the academy's edge—the place where silence first felt like comfort between them.
She said yes.
---
Their wedding was small. A few faculty. A few students. No extravagance.
She wore a dress of floating petals.
He wore scratched armor with a violet sash.
They needed nothing else but each other.
She laughed that day—truly, freely.
The sound echoed in Vergil's soul like sunlight breaking through ash.
They moved to a home near the academy. Her study overlooked the woods. His training ground lay just beyond the garden.
On quiet nights, they sat by the fire, fingers intertwined.
They tried for a child.
And in time, it happened.
Elvira stood before the mirror, hand over her belly, whispering dreams into her reflection. She'd never imagined she'd have something like this.
She named the unborn child Kaelen, whether boy or girl.
Hope bloomed in her chest.
Until fate intervened.
---
Time twisted.
Warmth bled into silence.
It was supposed to be a routine mission.
Low-threat demons had breached the forest perimeter. Elvira had wanted to join, but Ardin stopped her.
"You're pregnant, El," he whispered, his hand resting gently on the curve of her stomach. "Let me handle this. I'll be back before sunset."
He kissed her like it was just another day.
And she held him a little too long, as if the weight of fate had already begun to crack the air between them.
---
Sunset passed.
Then midnight.
Then morning.
No letters. No scouts. No return.
Only a shattered aura signature and a bloodstained blade—Ardin's—left at the academy gates.
Vergil felt it. All of it.
The creeping silence.
The panic that curled in Elvira's stomach like rot.
The hollow ringing in her ears as the world caved in.
He felt her knees give out in the garden.
Felt the raw scream rip from her throat—so powerful the glass around her home exploded from magical backlash. The earth cracked. Her control fractured.
It was not grief.
It was annihilation.
Vergil's breath shattered inside him, as if his own lungs were rebelling. Her emotions stormed into his mind—grief, anger, malice.
[System Notification: User's Insanity Meter has increased by 2%.]
But she didn't let herself fall apart for long.
There was still hope.
Still one heartbeat left—her child.
Her final tether to light.
---
Until the morning came.
Cold. Gray. Merciless.
She went into labor early.
Too early.
Vergil felt every second—her body tearing, her magic spasming, her screams echoing against empty walls. Alone. Desperate. Afraid.
Then… silence.
A girl.
Stillborn.
With Ardin's eyes.
Elvira's hands.
But no breath. No cry. No future.
Vergil couldn't scream. He tried. But her grief was too vast. It swallowed his voice. Crushed his chest. Cracked something behind his eyes. The only thing left was emptiness.
[System Notification: User's Insanity Meter has increased by 3%.]
She named her anyway.
Kaelen Vayne.
She wrapped her in silk.
Sang her the lullaby she never got to finish.
And buried her—beneath the tree that once glowed blue in the moonlight.
Right beside Ardin's broken blade.
Vergil's vision blurred with Elvira's tears. Her sorrow wasn't a wave. It was a tsunami. It didn't pass. It drowned.
He clutched his head, shaking, as if trying to peel the pain away with his hands.
[Total Insanity Increase: 5%]
---
But Elvira did not vanish.
She didn't die.
She taught.
She returned to her class the following week with hollow eyes and trembling fingers.
"Magic," she said, voice almost too soft to hear, "is still about choice."
Vergil stood behind her—inside her—as she forced herself to move, to breathe, to exist. A marionette stitched together by resolve and pain.
Students noticed the change. Some were quiet. Others too young to understand.
But she never spoke of it.
She simply kept going.
---
Years passed in moments.
She became the Vice Principal.
Her hair turned silver.
Her robes wore thinner.
Her smile shrank.
But she never let the fire inside her die—not completely.
And when the Headmaster called her in one final time, she bowed her head and said:
"I've given all I had to give."
Vaelmont was quiet.
Peaceful.
Elvira lived alone in a small house. She taught little tricks to children. Lit lanterns with flicks of her wrist. Brewed tea with magic.
She laughed again—but only in pieces.
Never remarried.
Never forgot.
She had loved once.
And that… was enough.
Vergil stood behind her one last time as she sat beneath the arcane tree, now older, more fragile. The morning wind swept her hair like silver thread.
She sipped her tea and whispered, "Maybe I'll see you both soon."
---
The memory didn't fade.
It burned into him—etched deep, like scripture carved into bone.
A moment later, blood returned to Vergil's senses.
He was kneeling—alone in a field of corpses, the sky a cold slate above him. His hands shook. His chest ached.
But it wasn't just sorrow.
It was a burden.
A truth.
And now… his to carry.
Vergil looked to the sky.
Tears streamed silently down his face.
He smiled—not from joy, but from something deeper.
Love wrapped in agony. Honor bound in pain.
The memory shimmered… and then shifted.
Faint, at first—like dust in the wind—before reforming into something warm and nostalgic.
It was their first meeting.
Not the Vergil of now, with silver hair and shadowed eyes, but a young man with messy black hair and uncertain brown eyes, stepping nervously onto the cobbled path that led into Vaelmont.
He looked lost.
And Elvira couldn't understand a word he said.
His voice carried strange cadence, a broken rhythm, and it took her a moment to realize: he wasn't speaking their language.
Her first instinct had been caution. The world wasn't kind, and strangers were rarely kind themselves.
And after he vomited.
Just like that, he understood her
"…Do you know where the blacksmith is?"
He asked politely, a hint of awkwardness in his tone, scratching the back of his head with a sheepish expression. There was something strangely disarming about him, like a predator pretending to be prey… or maybe the other way around.
She gave him directions, and when he thanked her, he smiled—a brief flicker of joy on his face that looked so out of place.
"Elvira," she said when he asked her name.
"…Vergil," he replied.
And just like that, they parted ways.
She thought that would be the end of it.
She was wrong.
---
He came back not too long after.
This time, asking for directions to buy food and potions.
He was more relaxed, but there was still a weight behind his eyes—like he was learning how to move in a world he didn't belong to.
That evening, he returned again.
This time… his voice cracked with uncertainty.
"I… don't remember anything," he said. "Not who I am. Where I'm from. I only know my name."
Elvira blinked.
Her instincts told her to be wary, but her heart… it cracked just a little.
A boy with no memories. A foreign tongue. Kind eyes full of silence.
She found herself nodding. "Come inside. I'll tell you what I know."
---
She explained it all to him.
About Eternia—its sprawling continents and chaotic kingdoms. The towering mountains of Huanglong, the arcane might of Thaelon, the conflict in Aurelia, and the distant threat from the Demonic Continent. She even spoke of Vaeloria, the land they stood on now—neutral, but wild and unpredictable.
And for the first time in years, as she spoke…
She felt something inside her stir.
Something she thought had died with her son and husband.
Purpose.
The loneliness that had nested in her chest for decades slowly began to recede.
Not vanish—but shift.
Vergil listened with such intensity. Soaking in every word. Every detail. He wasn't particularly expressive, but she noticed the way his posture changed. The way his brows furrowed in focus. The way he started asking questions—clever ones, sharp ones, like he wasn't just learning… but preparing.
It felt good to teach again.
To be needed.
---
That night, he came again—this time, soaked from the rain.
He stood on her porch, not saying anything for a long moment.
Then, with a hesistantvoice, he spoke:
"I… don't have anywhere else to go since the inn was closed when i got back. And you're the only person I know."
Elvira looked at him, the boy who seemed so hard yet so uncertain. And despite the warning bells in her head… she opened the door.
"You'll stay here. Just don't snore."
He smiled. "No promises."
That night, he brought something back with him.
A pendant, he said it was from a dead villager that was hunting in the forest and was killed.
No emotion. No tremble in his hands. His eyes didn't waver. His voice didn't crack.
He was calm—too calm.
And that's when Elvira knew.
He was already used to it.
The death, the blood, the weight of loss. It didn't shake him—not because he was heartless, but because he had seen it too many times.
'Wrong, im just numb to those emotions' Vergil thought to himself
"He's probably seen his part of this cruel world," Elvira thought, a quiet ache settling in her chest.
However, for someone so young to be so composed around death… He's like those from the noble families who are all about combat.
But he had principles.
He still buried him.
That was enough for Elvira.
A few days passed.
And once again, Vergil returned.
But this time… he wasn't alone.
A woman stood beside him—tall, poised, with wild eyes that burned with ambition. Eleanor.
Elvira could tell at a glance: this one was dangerous. But Vergil trusted her, and that was enough to give pause.
"I want to learn magic," Vergil said. "We both do."
Elvira hesitated. She hadn't taught in years.
"What makes you think I know magic.," she said.
"The books, scrolls."
He said it with a lopsided grin. As he kept going on.
She sighed.
"…Fine. Don't expect miracles."
---
The days that followed felt… strange.
Happy, even.
Eleanor was sharp, ambitious, and learned magic like she was born to wield it. Spells, incantations, theory—she soaked it all in like a scholar starved for knowledge.
Vergil… was the opposite.
He had no talent. He was average.
His attempts to make spells took hours,
His energy control was mediocore at best . Most people would've quit in the first week.
But he didn't.
He never stopped.
Every failure pushed him harder. Every setback made him more determined. His mana heart—somehow formed perfectly, with 100% efficiency—was the only thing that kept him going.
He was relentless. Even mad, in some way.
But Elvira saw something else in him.
Not madness.
Will.
He didn't chase power for glory.
He chased it because he had nothing else.
And as she watched him grow, fall, and rise again… her heart softened.
He reminded her of the son she had lost.
The grandson she would never meet.
---
Vergil, for his part, was happy.
Every lesson. He was happy, he only worked in his original world
Because it felt real
Like a memory that belonged to him.
Like family.
But even in his happiness… guilt gnawed at him.
He knew she looked at him like a grandson. Like someone precious.
And he knew… he didn't deserve it.
He was a stranger, he wasn't a kind person after everything he did, deep down he knew that
He wanted that place in her heart
But he didn't want to leave here either.
---
Elvira stood on her porch one evening, watching him and Eleanor train in the distance.
The sun had dipped behind the trees, casting long shadows across the grass.
And for the first time in years, she whispered aloud:
"…Maybe this world hasn't taken everything from me after all."
Here's the remade final scene, as requested — Elvira still has her mana heart and circle, but her body cannot endure the cost of using her full power.
---
The sky was aflame.
Ash drifted down like black snow, carried by the scent of burning wood and blood. Screams echoed in the distance—fading, growing, then dying again. Above it all, thunder cracked, but no storm came. Only demons.
Elvira stood outside her cottage in Vaelmont, the villagers pouring behind her into the cramped space. Children cried. Mothers whimpered. The wounded dragged themselves inside, leaving trails of red across the cobblestone path.
She didn't flinch. Her old hand, calloused from decades of spellcraft, reached out, steady as ever, casting a protective barrier over the house.
"Hurry inside! Everyone—go!"
She could feel it.
The mana surging through her veins like fire. Her mana heart pulsed with steady strength, her mana circle still intact—still whole. After all these years, they hadn't failed her. Not yet.
But her body?
Her body was dying.
The channels carrying her mana through her flesh were already beginning to tear, tiny fissures of agony spreading through muscle and bone. She bit back the pain. She had done so countless times before.
"I can still cast," she whispered under her breath. "I still have work to do."
Outside the barrier, the demonic tide approached—clawed beasts, fanged horrors, winged monstrosities shrieking as they tore through trees and earth. The horde was endless.
But they wouldn't take her people. Not tonight.
She turned back one last time.
The door was nearly shut. An old man gave her a desperate look. "Elvira! Come in—please!"
She smiled softly. "I'll join you soon. I promise."
A lie.
Then the door closed.
And she faced the demons alone.
Elvira raised her staff. Her mana surged—clean, controlled, refined over decades of mastery. The runes carved into the wood blazed with power. She launched spell after spell—ice crashing down in spears, earth erupting into jagged walls, fire roaring in sweeping waves.
Each cast was perfect.
Each incantation was sharp.
Her control was unshakable.
But her body…
Her arms trembled with every motion. Her knees buckled from the force of her own magic. Her organs cried out with every channeling.
Her mana heart was strong.
But her vessel was old.
Still, she pushed forward, carving a path of death through the horde. Every demon she killed was a step closer to saving her people.
She gritted her teeth, drawing deeper from her mana well. A massive sigil formed in the air above her, a layered spell—multi-elemental, destructive and absolute. The air shimmered with heat and light.
She cast it—
—and screamed.
Blood spurted from her mouth. Her right leg collapsed beneath her. Her spine jolted with fire. The spell incinerated an entire wave of demons, but the price was her flesh.
She was burning herself alive from the inside out.
But she refused to stop.
"For the village," she muttered through cracked lips.
"For the children…"
Her thoughts drifted—just for a moment.
Vergil.
That strange boy with black, messy hair and tired eyes.
He'd asked her for directions once. Couldn't even speak the language at first.
Then he returned, asking about the world.
She remembered the hollow in his voice when he said he had no memories.
She remembered the quiet sadness when he said he had no place to go.
She remembered the guilt in his eyes when he asked her to teach him magic.
And she remembered how her heart—long silent, long cold—had stirred with warmth again.
He was awkward. Kind in a way most people wouldn't notice. Cold in his principles, but never cruel. She saw the pain he tried to bury. The way his gaze avoided death, even when his hands were soaked in it.
She'd grown fond of him.
Her grandson, not by blood, but by fate.
The child she never got to raise.
Elvira staggered back as another explosion erupted, her breath ragged.
Her mana was still flowing.
But her body was nearing its end.
The pain was unbearable now. Her arms hung limp. Her vision blurred. Her blood was thin, leaking from her nose, her ears, her mouth. Her knees shook.
But she stood.
And stood.
And stood.
Because she had to.
Then she heard it.
The scream.
From the house.
"No…" she gasped, turning her head in horror.
The door was open.
They had come out.
A second wave of demons had struck while she was casting her most powerful spell. The barrier weakened for just a moment. Just one.
And they slipped in.
She crawled.
Her limbs barely obeyed.
She forced her battered body to the doorstep—
And found them.
The villagers she'd fought to protect.
Their bodies—slaughtered. Torn apart. Their blood soaked the ground, mixing with the rain. Children, elders, mothers. All of them.
Dead.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came.
A scream trapped in a shattered throat.
Elvira knelt beside the smallest body—a little girl, her hands still clutching the doll Elvira had given her just a week ago.
The doll was soaked red.
"No… no…"
She couldn't cry. Her body was too broken.
But the pain tore through her like a storm.
She had failed.
Everything she gave.
All of it—
Not enough.
And as she slumped beside the bodies, the warmth began to fade from her fingers.
Her mana heart still pulsed.
Her circle still intact.
But her body had nothing left to give.
She looked up to the sky—ash still falling.
And she smiled.
"I'm sorry… Vergil…"
"I won't get to see who you become."
"…But I was happy."
She let her head rest against the blood-soaked soil.
And with one final exhale, Elvira— the retired witch closed her eyes, her magic flickering out in silence.
---
Vergil Watched.
He stood in the endless black void of memory, the scene before him burning into his soul.
Elvira's final stand.
Her broken body, collapsed beside the blood-soaked earth.
The faint smile on her lips, even in death.
And all Vergil felt—was guilt.
A heavy, suffocating guilt that clawed at his chest and squeezed around his lungs like an iron grip. He couldn't look away. No matter how much he wanted to, he watched it all unfold.
Every scream.
Every spell.
Every life she tried to protect.
He didn't care for the villagers. He didn't care about their fate. Not truly.
But her?
Her.
She was the only person who gave him a place to rest when he had none.
She taught him about the world when he was a blank slate.
She gave him warmth in a world that had only offered cold blood and silence.
She looked at him—not like a weapon, not like a monster—but like he was her own.
And he left her.
He left her behind.
"It's my fault," he whispered in the void.
His knees buckled.
"It's my fault… it's my fault… it's my fault…"
The words repeated like a broken incantation.
He opened the portal.
It was his greed.
His hunger for strength.
His endless, sick craving for power that allowed the demons to come. That gave them the crack they needed.
And she paid the price.
Not him. Her.
His nails dug into his scalp as he trembled.
"It hurts," he muttered. "It hurts. It hurts. It hurts…"
He felt her final emotions—the desperate determination, the fading breath, the sorrow… but most of all, the joy. The joy that he had existed in her final days. That he made her feel like a grandmother again, even for a moment.
And that joy stabbed deeper than any guilt.
She was happy.
And he ruined everything.
[Sanity Meter has increased by 5%]
Vergil clutched his head. The darkness around him pulsed. The memory burned, echoing again and again, replaying like a cruel curse.
"I shouldn't have let her die," he whispered, voice hollow.
"I shouldn't have let her die…"
But deep down, he knew.
He didn't deserve to mourn her.
Not after this.
Then suddenly—
everything turned black.
The memory, the screams, the blood—they all vanished into the void. Silence reigned. Suffocating. Cold. Timeless.
Vergil stood still in the nothingness, suspended between thought and reality.
He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know what he was anymore.
His mind twisted under the weight of guilt.
It hurts.
He clenched his fists.
It hurts.
He screamed, but no sound came.
It hurts.
His breath turned ragged as something inside him cracked—
[Sanity Meter has increased by 5%]
Then—
A flicker.
A light.
A figure began to form ahead of him, slowly shaping through the veil of black.
Vergil's eyes widened, breath catching in his throat as the image cleared.
A familiar robe.
Long silver hair.
Eyes that once looked at him with gentle pride.
Elvira.
She stood there.
Alive.
Whole.
Watching him.
Vergil's lips parted—
"E… Elvira?"