The Garden of Yiphanel, the millennia-old spirit.

The first time I had come here was at the beginning of the semester. Back then, I barely understood what *mana leakage disorder* was.

Thinking about it now, Yiphanel probably helped me more than anyone else. Through her, I’d learned about my body’s hidden weakness and found a way to overcome what would otherwise have been a death sentence.

There were other ways, sure. But truthfully, before graduating from Stella, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out on my own. So I was always grateful to her.

Yet, I’d never expressed that gratitude. Our meeting had been brief, and even after I awoke, she was always asleep, so we never really talked.

Our distance grew, both in reality and in my mind… and honestly, I had forgotten about her entirely.

I was busy. So busy that even saying “busy” didn’t capture it—I spent the entire summer roaming Aether, even traveling through time.

Still, Yiphanel had just awakened, weak and vulnerable. I should have kept an eye on her, especially since things in this world were progressing differently than in the original game.

“The mana concentration… it’s dropping,” Hwa Seorin murmured.

I nodded. Most people wouldn’t notice, but those sensitive to mana, like us, could faintly sense something was off.

The path to Yiphanel’s garden wasn’t the typical route someone would take. It was treacherous terrain, and going alone was exhausting. But with Hwa Seorin, it felt much easier.

As she walked, the very ground seemed to reshape beneath her feet. Leaves that would otherwise block the way moved aside on their own, and flower petals floated down from the sky, forming steps for us.

Some might find the sight beautiful or magical, but I thought it was simply… convenient.

I wished I had powers like that.

Before long, we reached our destination, and the petals and branches that had gathered to aid us quietly receded as Hwa Seorin stopped.

“…This doesn’t feel right,” she said.

The entrance to the garden was veiled by the World Tree’s branches, hidden from even the elves. With a wave of her hand, the vines parted, revealing an ancient, moss-covered stone slab—the gateway.

I stepped forward and pulled out the key.

“That’s…”

“A gift I received,” I said.

“A… key?”

“Yes.”

The one who gifted it was part of the *Constellation Project*, but technically, that wasn’t a lie.

*Click!*

[The door to the Garden of the Spirit Yiphanel is opening!]

When I held the key up to the slab, it slid aside, revealing a soft, radiant light. Yiphanel’s resting place lay in a dimension slightly beyond the physical world, so the space itself had a subtle distortion.

I exchanged a glance with Hwa Seorin, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

*Woong!*

A familiar sensation swept over me as the space twisted, and when I opened my eyes… the garden was bathed in an eerie violet hue.

“Ugh!”

Dizziness hit me, and I quickly reached into a pocket dimension to pull out a mask. Though it resembled a gas mask, it was designed to block out mana rather than poison gas.

After realizing how vulnerable my body was to potent mana, I had crafted it, but I hadn’t expected to use it in Yiphanel’s garden.

“This… can’t be…” Hwa Seorin whispered, her face pale as she took in the sight of the garden.

Once filled with green, gentle light, Yiphanel’s garden was now polluted by a dense, noxious purple mana.

Even with my mask on, it was difficult to breathe. I’d have to ask Altericia to upgrade its filtering capabilities.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah… I’m managing. Are you?”

“What?”

Hwa Seorin’s complexion was ashen. Her lips quivered, and her pupils refused to settle, betraying her distress.

Could it be the dark mana?

No, that didn’t seem right. She was blessed by the World Tree and shouldn’t be affected by mere dark mana.

She wasn’t suffering physically—she was in shock, panicking at the impossibility of finding such intense dark mana in Yiphanel’s garden.

Thanks to her blessing, she masked it well, but I could see her internal turmoil.

“Calm down,” I said, holding her trembling hands.

She closed her eyes tightly.

“Yes. Let’s go,” she replied, regaining her composure.

Despite the corruption, nothing in the garden seemed structurally different. In the past, I had fought plant monsters here, all crafted by Yiphanel to protect herself, yet they were nowhere in sight now.

In a strange way, the garden felt more like a dungeon now, but without any monsters to guard it. It was an unsettling irony.

With caution, Hwa Seorin and I walked deeper into the garden until we reached a wall of rock blocking the way.

This hadn’t been here before… but Hwa Seorin seemed familiar with it. She approached it confidently, as though it had only appeared after my previous visits.

“This is… a barrier Yiphanel uses to keep intruders out.”

“A barrier?”

To me, it just looked like an ordinary rock.

Fortunately, Hwa Seorin seemed to know the password. She placed her hand on the barrier and began chanting.

*Woong!!*

As she finished, red, blue, and yellow magic circles rippled through the air, and the rock wall slid aside with a grinding sound, opening the path.

A gentle breeze brushed against my face.

Moonlight poured in.

It was as beautiful as I remembered.

Above us hung three massive moons, larger than Earth’s, and a silvery galaxy stretched across the sky, casting a radiant glow over the vast field of flowers below.

Under the cascade of moonlight, she was there.

The millennia-old spirit, Yiphanel.

Trapped in the eternal stillness of time, she had been granted a new heart, a chance at life…

And yet, she knelt there, eyes closed, in the same posture I remembered. Her form, younger now, looked like a girl in prayer, her expression one of quiet sorrow.

“Yiphanel…”

Once as cool and serene as moonlight, Yiphanel was now stained with violet hues, her form overtaken by dark mana.

Hwa Seorin clasped her mouth in horror, while I could only watch and analyze.

*Why?*

Why was Yiphanel tainted?

In about a year, the *Dark Spirit War* was supposed to happen.

At that time, Yiphanel would fall to dark mana, though the reason had never been revealed in the game.

Players speculated that perhaps Hwa Seorin would be brainwashed by dark mana and used as a pawn in the war.

But that war was still far off… and I had no reason to believe it would even happen.

After all, the *Dark Spirit War* only occurred in routes where Mayuseong succumbed to darkness.

“This… doesn’t make sense.”

“What?” I turned to see Hwa Seorin shaking her head, her face hardened.

“It’s impossible to taint a spirit with dark mana.”

“At this concentration… Yiphanel might not withstand it. Especially now, in her weakened state.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What?”

With a firm expression, she spoke.

“Yiphanel is a spirit. Upon ascending as a spirit… she would have gained the title of *Noble Soul*, untouched by corruption.”

“Oh.”

A sudden realization hit me like a hammer.

It was a question I hadn’t even considered. A noble soul couldn’t be tainted by dark mana, and a spirit’s soul remained pure.

The reason I hadn’t questioned this was embarrassingly simple… because in the original game, Yiphanel’s corruption was all too common.

But I had no idea why.

I only played along, heading to the dungeon to fight Yiphanel, just as the game dictated.

I never questioned what had led her to that state.

*What could possibly corrupt a noble soul? Was there even a villain capable of such a feat?*

I was filled with questions.

“Sigh…”

I didn’t know the cause, or the perpetrator.

I slowly approached Yiphanel. She was still, her eyes tightly shut and her hands clasped at her chest as though frightened by something.

*I should have come sooner…*

She couldn’t hear my voice.

The faint cries that had once lingered around me… I realized now they had been her pleas for help.

*If that was the case, she must have been lucid up until at least a week ago.*

Could she have been corrupted to this extent so quickly?

Even the Dark Mage King couldn’t corrupt a spirit this thoroughly.

I glanced around.

The violet dark mana saturated the space.

Now that I looked closely… all traces of Yiphanel’s green mana had vanished.

Only the violet mana remained, suffusing the entire area as if it had been here for centuries, blending seamlessly into the environment.

“This… could it be…”

Just as I was about to voice my suspicion to Hwa Seorin, she suddenly staggered and fell to her knees.

“Huh? Are you okay?”

I quickly helped her up, watching as she rubbed her temples and wiped away a bead of cold sweat.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she murmured.

“Did the dark mana get to you?”

“No… that’s not it. It’s… the World Tree keeps trying to speak to me…”

“What is it saying?”

Hwa Seorin shook her head before parting her lips to speak.

“It said… that an unwelcome guest with an aura of dim brown has arrived

…”

“Dim brown…?”

The term was both strange and familiar, but soon, a database search brought information to the forefront of my mind.

At that moment, my chest went cold.

*No…*

In this world, only two beings bore that unique energy.

One of them never moved, leaving just one possibility.

*Cheoriban.*

None other than that legendary dark mage.