Matthew's voice broke the silence, but it was heavier than usual—more urgent, tinged with disbelief.
"What exactly do you mean by that, Aidan?" His tone was sharp, slicing through the stillness between them. His eyes locked onto Aidan's with an intensity that left no room for evasion. "What did you say? Can you repeat it? I think I misheard."
Aidan didn't blink. He didn't flinch. His calmness wasn't a mask this time—it was conviction.
"You heard me right, teacher," he said, voice steady. "I want to go to the Dark Forest."
The repetition froze the air between them. Matthew's expression remained unreadable, but the silence that followed was thick with unspoken questions. Had he really just heard that?
But he had.
And that terrified him.
Why?
That word echoed in Matthew's mind like a distant scream. Why the Dark Forest of all places?
The thought triggered memories that came back like stabs to the chest—when Aidan had once deliberately broken his wrist, just to force his aura to awaken. It wasn't a cry for help. It wasn't impulsive. It was calculated. Cold. Driven by obsession.
And that same obsession now stared back at him.
It wasn't that Aidan was reckless in the conventional sense—he wasn't sloppy or wild. But he had a kind of intensity that could one day swallow him whole.
Matthew had seen it before—in the eyes of people who'd gone too far, too fast. People who had looked at power not as a tool, but as a need. A hunger.
He knew what came of that path. He had buried enough of them to remember.
The ones who treated power as salvation… always fell the hardest.
And now here stood Aidan, calm, certain, and standing at the edge of that same road.
Matthew's frown deepened. His voice came out quieter this time, but no less sharp.
"Why?"
Aidan noticed the disappointment in Matthew's eyes. That look—subtle, but undeniable—cut deeper than any scolding. He wasn't being dismissed. He was being judged. And that hurt in a way he hadn't anticipated.
He felt it stir, something uncomfortable rising in his chest. Guilt? Shame?
No, not guilt for wanting to go. But for hurting someone he respected. For making him feel like Aidan was walking into ruin.
"I…" Aidan hesitated. His voice, once firm, now wavered. "I had a vision, teacher."
Matthew said nothing. He didn't even blink. But something in his posture shifted—a slight lean forward, eyes narrowing, not out of anger but intent. He was listening.
Aidan took a breath and began to explain.
Slowly at first, as if testing each word before speaking it aloud. He told Matthew about the visions—how they had started, subtle and haunting, creeping into his thoughts uninvited.
He spoke of the pull. The strange, constant tug that whispered in his mind whenever the Dark Forest came up. A pressure. A calling. A certainty.
"I don't know what it is," Aidan said, his voice regaining steadiness, "but I feel like something inside that forest is waiting. For me."
He didn't mention the egg. That was a truth not even Matthew could hear yet. That secret—glowing with warmth and danger alike—remained his alone.
But everything else, he shared.
"The mana surrounding the forest… it's turning into mist. I've seen it. I've felt it. That place is changing. Something's brewing, something we're not ready for. I can feel it in my bones. It's tied to me. Somehow."
It was a bold claim—irrational even. The kind of claim that sounded delusional coming from anyone, let alone a boy barely past his first real awakening.
Matthew didn't respond. His arms were crossed now, fingers rubbing at his chin as his thoughts churned like a storm beneath the surface. He remained silent, not even blinking.
Aidan took a step forward.
"I know how this sounds," he admitted. "But I'm not asking this because I'm foolish, or because I want to prove something."
He dropped the last of his facade.
"I'm asking because I have to go. Because if I don't… something terrible will happen. I don't know what, or when, but it will. I can't shake that feeling. It's been eating at me, and I won't find peace just staying here, pretending it's nothing."
He looked straight into Matthew's eyes.
"That's why I need your help, teacher. I don't have the strength to go alone. Not yet. But you… you do. And I trust you."
The silence that followed was different.
It wasn't awkward or unsure.
It was heavy. Thick with everything Matthew didn't want to say.
If it were anyone else, he would have laughed it off. Or walked away.
But it wasn't anyone else.
It was Aidan.
Matthew's mind was a whirlwind.
Aidan wasn't arrogant. He didn't carry himself like a prodigy despite being one. And he wasn't the kind of person to exaggerate. That made what he was saying even more disturbing.
Because this wasn't just a strange feeling. Aidan believed it. Completely. And belief like that… could change a person. Could consume them.
What he was claiming wasn't just strange. It was dangerous. Unbelievable. To say the anomaly of the Dark Forest—the single most unpredictable, volatile place in the Empire—was somehow connected to him?
It bordered on madness.
No Fourth Ranker would dare say such a thing. Yet Aidan, a child barely awakened, had said it with a straight face.
And the worst part?
He wasn't lying.
Matthew didn't know how he knew that. But he did. Aidan believed every word. And that… terrified him.
Because what if he was right?
What if the boy standing before him was more than just a prodigy?
What if the forest really was calling to him?
And what if that calling had a purpose?
A long silence stretched between them before Matthew finally exhaled, low and slow.
Then, he spoke.
"No."
It came out like a hammer, solid and final. Aidan's shoulders tensed, but he didn't react outwardly.
"I won't help you," Matthew continued.
"I've seen what ambition does to people like you."
He paused.
"And sometimes some become a monster Aidan."