In the depths of the night embracing the Royal Academy, two people had a secret meeting in one of the guest rooms of the dormitory building.
"I've made things easy for you. With this, you will be able to stop sneaking around and wasting time."
Viscount Ian Houndred was speaking harshly to a hooded individual who bowed apologetically towards him without uttering a single word.
"Keep increasing the power of the glyphs, but change from gradual to significant. Just remember to monitor him to change the power back to standard output once he's dead. And remember to keep up the disguise spell! He can't learn that the cold room training is actually effective. He must keep BELIEVING that he's getting weaker!"
The mad instructed with his face twisted in fury.
"He knows too much. Try to discover how he learned about our little secret, but don't make it a priority. What's most important is that he goes too far with the training and freezes to death in the cold room."
Viscount added, reaching out towards the hooded person and patting their shoulder while leaning in…
"Do. Not. Fail."
"...!"
He whispered in a chilling voice, causing the hooded person to flinch and start shivering.
—--
In the cold room lit up with magic light, the passage of time holds no meaning.
All is naught in the face of the winter's harsh embrace.
When the butler showed up one time to restock the food supply, with his lips blue from the cold despite the elemental resistance and every fire-infusing spell cast on his clothes, he winked at Rotsard, saying the new rations would surely warm him up.
And given that they were frozen solid and didn't even properly melt until they were in the boy's stomach, it wasn't until he ate them that he realized the secret ingredient added was liquor.
Or rather, an extremely strong alcohol that wasn't brewed for taste but simply to pack the strongest possible punch.
The problem with alcohol is that it doesn't actually make one warmer.
It only makes it feel like it does.
While in fact, it dilutes the blood and makes the body more prone to the cold.
The intent behind giving something like that to Rotsard was blatantly obvious.
But so what?
Rotsard Vallhall was always the third-rate villain character whose pride and spitefulness would eventually lead to his demise.
It was to the point where even knowing what his future holds couldn't change a thing.
Rotsard even dared to eat the 'special' clear chunks of ice that turned out to be so cold that the boundary between the temperature of the cold room and the temperature of his innards equalled, bringing him to the brink of death.
His breath stopped turning into mist.
But…
So what?
He ate the frozen food encased in the frozen alcohol and trained.
He ate the pure alcohol frozen solid and circulated his mana in the pattern of the Joy of the First Snow.
He trained and practiced, he practiced and trained.
The cold was numbing everything, allowing him to train even harder. Since it felt like his blood was already barely flowing through his veins, he wouldn't cough up blood no matter how much he practiced magic.
And since his blood was so thick, it finally stopped making the pillar in the middle of the room grow thicker as he hit it repeatedly.
Whether it was his imagination or not, at some point, even the frozen alcohol began to feel warm in comparison to the temperature of the cold room.
His breath began to turn into mist once again. Even simple movement was becoming impossible…
…and so Rotsard ate the frozen alcohol, the only ration that was left, in bulk and sat down cross-legged, placing his hands on his knees and focused.
Focused.
Focused…
Fo…
...cused…
…
—---
"Ugh…! So hot…! Can we get rid of the magma seal already!? I told you all it was an overkill!"
Once the group of five people passed the barrier and entered the hallway leading to the vacant wing of the Royal Academy, one of them scowled and complained as the immense heatwave hit their bodies.
"Well, it got rid of all the ice, so stop complaining. Cancel."
Another person, a strict-faced man, rolled his eyes and scoffed before waving his hand, deactivating the seal.
"...!"
As he did, the heat dispersed immediately, replaced by a gust of cold air, that caused the man's eyes to widen.
It was the early morning of the first day of the end-of-term examination. and the group composed of three teachers and two servants was dispatched to notify a certain problematic student serving a self-imposed house arrest of the schedule.
The two servants were the boy's maid and butler, and their faces showed varying degrees of concern.
"Alright, let's… ack…!"
"?"
The teacher who complained first was also the first one to reach out and grab the door handle to the classroom into a cold room, only to cry out in shock and back off, causing others to look at her in confusion.
"Why can't you use your head more. It was within a magma seal, of course it would be hot."
The only male teacher in the group breathed out, shaking his head at his rash colleague.
"N-no… It's not hot. It's so cold that it stung me…"
"...eh…?"
The rash teacher, clutching her hand close to her body, shook her head and mumbled with a vulnerable expression, causing the last female teacher to let out a baffled gasp and stare at the door handle as if it suddenly came to life.
"Pardon my forwardness, noble teachers, but haven't we explained how the cold room works? The door is part of the closed magic formation. It's bound to stay cold as long as it's active."
The butler looked between the faculty members and pointed out, causing the three of them to awkwardly look to the sides.
"Allow me."
The butler added, reaching out to the door handle himself and grabbing it as his hand glowed blue.
He then opened the door without any signs of discomfort and made way for the others while slightly bowing his head, while they all winced in the face of the cold that spread from the inside.
"Young Master, today's the first day of the evaluation. A few of the teachers arrived to confirm your… Young Master…?"
The maid entered the room first, bowing down immediately upon passing the doorstep, but she got confused by the lack of any reaction and glanced up…
…only to see a seemingly empty room with a massive ice pillar infused with some sort of black substance spread on it in a spiderweb-like pattern.
"Young Master…?"
The maid repeated herself and started looking around, but as she failed to notice Rotsard's presence, she straightened her back and walked further into the room.
"Don't tell me that boy wasn't actually committed to the house arrest… Where is he?"
"N-no! Young Master was definitely here!"
The strict-faced teacher let out a deep sigh and asked, glaring at the maid with accusation, causing her to shake her head and desperately assure him.
"The windows are sealed, and the magic circuit on the door wasn't broken since the last time I delivered supplies to our Young Master…"
The butler spoke up, stepping into the cold room and looking around with a face full of suspicion.
"Let's check those supplies then."
One of he female teachers stared at the butler for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and deciding.
The butler nodded and followed the command, approaching and opening a storage box to find it completely empty.
"See? They're gone."
"If they were here in the first place…"
The butler pointed out, but the rash teacher scoffed under her breath, looking away from him…
"...?"
Only to notice a dark patch of ice piled up right next to the box.
There was something off about it. Beside the ice pillar in the middle of the room, there were no ice formations other than the one next to the box, and even the pillar wasn't so cloudy and dark…
The walls were frosted over, sure, but that spot appeared oddly out of place and shaped in a way that didn't seem like it was formed on its own.
The more the rash teacher looked at it, the more it appeared to have an outline of…
…a human being sitting down cross-legged…
"...wait a second…! En-ember."
The rash teacher's eyes widened, and she leaned down to the suspicious ice structure. Even ended up kneeling down and activating a fire spell on the palm of her hand.
"..."
"What are you doing…?"
As she focused and began scraping off the layer of white frost, her colleagues called out to her in confusion…
"...!"
But the next moment, the rash teacher backed off in panic...
"YOUNG MASTER!?"
And when the maid saw what made her do that, she cried out in horror!
Because the ice structure with a dark patch next to the empty storage box was revealed to be Rotsard's body frozen over.
"Young Master…! YOUNG MASTER!"
The maid lost her cool completely and threw herself at the frozen boy, crying hysterically and clawing at the thick layer of ice covering his body.