Inside a well-known fast-food chain restaurant, Misaki City
"Over the years, I've met all sorts of people: some downright bizarre but someone like you, who drags others around right after arriving and picks a fast-food joint for a meeting? That's a first."
"Not to mention, I'm technically your senior. If you've got a favor to ask, shouldn't you show a little respect, Junior Crowley?"
Touko Aozaki snuffed out her cigarette, her gaze settling on the black-haired young man sitting across from her. He was casually munching on fries while nodding in response.
"Compared to those fancy cafes with their overpriced, pretty-looking pastries that don't even fill you up, fast food is quicker and more convenient," Alex replied, glancing at her briefly before returning to his food. "Besides, I don't think a certain debt-ridden disaster has much credibility with me."
After wrapping up his business in Fuyuki City, Alex had traveled overnight on the Shinkansen, arriving in Misaki City at dawn.
Exhausted upon arrival, he opted for the nearest fast-food restaurant by the station to grab a quick bite and call an acquaintance, the red-haired woman now seated before him.
Despite her youthful appearance, looking barely past twenty, Touko Aozaki was no small figure. She was a renowned genius of the Clock Tower, her talents and achievements stretching beyond ordinary comprehension into the realm of miracles.
Her most notable accomplishments included reconstructing two declining magical systems in the modern era. First, she revived medieval puppetry techniques, surpassing their original mastery and achieving a form of pseudo-immortality while retaining her consciousness. Second, she restored the lost Rune magic foundation of Northern Europe, regenerating the 24 common runes and even deciphering several primordial runes lost since the Age of Gods. These feats marked her as a genius among geniuses—a modern miracle among magi.
For these achievements, she was unanimously granted the highest rank a magus could attain in the Mage's Association Grand: Crown.
Despite her brilliance, her current situation was far from ideal, downright abysmal, even. This was thanks to the Clock Tower's infamous Sealing Designation system.
The Sealing Designation was a twisted policy that 'protected' magi with rare talents or those who'd broken taboos by imprisoning them for life. Magi possessing unique abilities like innate bounded fields that couldn't be learned through study were treated as 'valuable specimens.'
Touko had been betrayed by her own mentor and placed on the Sealing Designation list, forcing her into years of exile. Now, she sat before Alex, dressed in a white shirt under a brown sweater and a light brown coat, a briefcase in hand. Her wine-red hair was tied into a ponytail, and oval glasses rested on her high-bridged nose. She exuded a scholarly air compared to her Clock Tower days, but Alex could still sense the exhaustion lurking in her eyes.
"So, Senior Touko, how's life on the run treating you?" he asked.
"…Tch, do you have to rub it in?" Aoko sighed, exasperated. "With the Department of Policies' hounds on my tail, when do I ever get a break?"
Unfazed by his jab, she grabbed a few fries from the table and popped them into her mouth.
With her skills, few in the world could actually kill her. But 'not being killable' didn't make the endless pursuit any less exhausting. She was just one person against the entire Department of Policies' Enforcers and reckless bounty hunters. No matter how capable she was, she couldn't help but feel outmatched against such a vast force.
The Enforcers weren't like the Clock Tower's research-obsessed, politically scheming bureaucrats. They were battle-hardened, skilled in both combat and magecraft, with precise intelligence networks. Even a Crown-ranked magus like Touko had to flee from their relentless chase.
This constant running and fighting wasn't the life she wanted. As a magus, she craved a stable place to study magecraft and pursue the Root.
Unlike the well-funded Clock Tower, her resources were finite. Every material she used depleted her stock, and at this rate, she'd soon lack the funds even to craft spare puppets.
That's why she'd fled to the eastern side, a region deemed mystically barren and sneered at by Western European nobles—to lay low.
Worse still, her debts had tanked her reputation. With the Association's influence looming, few dared associate with her, making it nearly impossible to secure investments from magical families.
She was desperate for money. Who could imagine the great Crown Puppet Master reduced to scraping by, barely able to afford puppet-making materials?
That desperation was why she'd rushed from her hideout the moment she got a call from Alex, a potential lifeline, or as she saw it, a 'generous junior' who might invest in her.
As for the debts she'd racked up with him in the past? She conveniently left those unmentioned. She'd owed too much for too long, repaying it slowly was fine, right? After all, lifespan wasn't an issue for her. If push came to shove, she could always mortgage her Rune research results to him. They weren't as useful to her anymore, anyway.
"By the way, it's only been two years, but you've changed a lot, huh?" Touko said, calming down a bit and studying him anew. A flicker of curiosity danced in her crimson eyes.
"Have I changed that much?"
'Way too much, practically a different person,' she thought, puzzled by the shift.