The first thing she noticed when he entered the royal estate was that he was invisible to her senses.
'How strange.'
He walked among the Dauntless Vanguard, their armor gleaming beneath the noon light. They surrounded him like a living wall, each soldier both wary and, curiously, comfortable in his presence.
She bowed her head as they passed, a humble gesture befitting her guise as a gardener, though her eyes never left him.
For the briefest of moments, their gazes met. The foreigner regarded her with only a fleeting glance, light and unreadable.
Perhaps it was meant as acknowledgment, a courteous nod to a lowly servant. Such a gesture might have warmed the heart of a simpler soul, but she was made of sterner substance.
Or perhaps it was suspicion, a fleeting test of will. Many of her lesser sisters would have faltered beneath that sharp gaze, but she held her bow with practiced grace, her expression composed, her curiosity veiled behind servile awe.
Only when he passed beyond the courtyard did she lift her head. Even then, there was no lingering trace of his presence, no magical resonance, no echo of aura.
It was as if he had never been there at all. No existence beyond that of memory.
Where every living being carried within them an essence, what she referred to as life, he possessed no such thing. There was no pulse of spirit, no flicker of energy to mark his existence.
He didn't even feel hollow or empty. No, it was far stranger than that. It was as though he simply… didn't exist.
Did that mean he wasn't alive?
No. She had heard his heartbeat when he passed close by, steady and strong. To her eyes, he appeared as alive as any other man or woman, undeniably there.
But beyond the flesh, on that subtler plane where life's essence danced and intertwined, there was nothing.
Metaphysically, he was a void. She was intrigued.
---
He had been granted quarters within the noble district, an odd development, to say the least. Though she had not attended the council herself, whispers from the lesser nobles soon painted a vivid picture of what had transpired.
He hailed from another realm. Not the Spirit Realm, nor some lesser pocket of existence, but a true alternate world, another plane entire, a separate universe in its own right.
That revelation alone set her mind alight with curiosity. Could that be the reason she could not perceive him? Was his soul so alien that it resonated upon a frequency beyond this world's comprehension?
No. The truth revealed itself soon enough, and he had made no effort to conceal it.
Anti-Magic.
He was born in a realm where magic governed all things, where the worth of man and nation alike was measured by the potency of the arcane flowing through their veins. And yet, he alone had been born bereft of it, an empty vessel in a world drowning in sorcery.
But in that void, something else had stirred. He had awakened the antithesis of their order, the power to nullify magic itself.
The Demacian nobles, in their gilded ignorance, dismissed this revelation without a thought. To them, anti-magic was nothing new. They possessed petricite, that holy mineral forged to silence spellcraft.
'Fools,' she mused. 'Arrogant, short-sighted fools.'
She knew, beyond all doubt, that it was genuine. Already, his mere presence had thwarted her attempts to scrutinize him, and his arrival alone had nudged Demacia's fate ever so slightly away from the course she had so carefully woven.
And yet, for all her intuition, she could not truly fathom the nature of this Anti-Magic. It was an enigma, one that eluded even her considerable understanding.
Until the incident.
The day when the heavens themselves were shrouded in black steel. The day that would later be remembered, whispered even, as The Black Sky Incident.
It was on that day that she at last comprehended what Anti-Magic truly was. The moment when her breath hitched and her limbs grew numb, when her connection to the arcane was severed utterly, and for the briefest of instants, she was rendered no more than a mundane girl.
The sensation was... alien. Disquieting. Yet strangely intoxicating. She could not decide whether she despised it or desired to feel it again.
"Such chaos," she had murmured then, her lips curling in faint amusement. "This could be useful."
Indeed, it could. If she could but discern how to wield it properly. In its raw form, it was the answer to a thousand of her long-standing woes, but if mishandled, it might well birth a thousand more.
She would not permit another failure. Not like Nockmirch. (Author Note: Go and read the Garen light novel if you're wondering about what failure she's talking about. It's called Garen: First Shield.)
---
Through a subtle weaving of persuasion, and perhaps a touch of enchantment, she managed to convince one of the royal officials to arrange her transfer to the foreigner's manor within the noble quarters.
It was far more convenient than impersonating an existing member of the household staff. After all, she was uncertain of what might occur should his Anti-Magic once more nullify her spells. The risk of exposure was far too great.
He appeared to have taken on a pupil of sorts, a boy named Darryl. The child's magic was feeble, his grasp upon the arcane little more than a flickering ember. Yet, the foreigner seemed devoted to his training, blind to the fact that he had already granted the boy a mercy beyond measure by sparing him from the persecution that awaited most mages.
Asta, as he was called, possessed a heart far too pure for this world. A naive soul, and perhaps a simple mind. Fortunate, then, that such simplicity might serve her purposes well.
He spent his days guiding the boy through drills and meditation, and in the evenings, he often conversed with Garen, occasionally crossing blades with him for sport.
She, meanwhile, kept a prudent distance, careful not to let her guise unravel. To all who looked her way, she was but a humble gardener, tending quietly to the nobleman's flowers.
Upon returning from a recent expedition with the boy, and after what whispers claimed was a peculiar encounter and brief clash with a duelist, he soon led his pupil upon yet another errand, this time to the artisans' quarter.
According to his own words, their purpose was to commission the forging of a relic from his homeland, a magical item, as he described it.
Naturally, her curiosity was stirred. With little else demanding her attention, she chose to follow at a prudent distance.
It required no great effort for her to bend perception around herself, weaving a subtle enchantment that caused any who glanced her way to dismiss her as wholly unremarkable.
Even the ever-watchful MageSeekers, those self-proclaimed sentinels of purity, proved laughably susceptible to her craft. They were little more than brutes in uniform, preying upon the powerless while strutting beneath the banner of righteousness.
Her only misstep came when she lingered too long by the threshold of the craftsman's door. The moment Asta stepped outside, she sensed his awareness brush against her presence like a blade grazing silk.
In an instant, she summoned a veil of concealment, cloaking herself from both sight and sorcery alike. Yet, it availed her nothing.
He turned his gaze in her direction and spoke, calm, unhurried, asking how long she intended to continue her silent observation.
In that moment, she understood. He knew.
'Nothing is amiss,' she projected outward, her mind a still pond, sending the thought through the ether with herself as its undisturbed center.
The MageSeekers who had shadowed their every step faltered as if gripped by sudden confusion. One by one, they dispersed into the streets, their minds quietly rewriting their purpose until not a trace of suspicion remained. None could recall why they had followed the foreigner in the first place.
Even the hidden blades upon the rooftops, the silent assassins sworn to observe from afar, found their conviction dissolve like mist before dawn. To them, there was nothing amiss. No threat. No quarry. Only the faint whisper of an abandoned duty.
Yet the foreigner remained unmoved. His gaze held steady upon her concealment, as though the veil she so deftly wove were but glass before his eyes.
"How long have you been aware of me?" she asked at last, stepping forth from the unseen. Her illusion faded like smoke upon the wind, her form now laid bare beneath the muted light. Anti-Magic truly is as formidable as I had surmised, she mused silently.
"Since you became aware of me," came his calm reply.
Her brow arched, a subtle expression of intrigue. 'Ah... since our first encounter, then. So he perceived me even then. How vexing, and yet, how very fascinating.'
Then he looked her up and down. "I saw you in the royal palace as well, though you looked entirely different then. Transformation magic? No… I recognized you anyway, so it's too weak to be that. Illusion magic, then. Not bad, you should join the Black Bulls."
Until the day she died, she would never admit that she had been caught so completely off guard that she had blurted out an unguarded, "What?"
'Is he… recruiting me?' she wondered, momentarily flabbergasted by how absurdly the situation had turned.
Asta merely shrugged, utterly unfazed. "I don't know why you've been stalking me…"
She bristled at the accusation, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Stalker? How dare he. A stalker was a pitiful creature, an obsessive fool with nothing better to do than to unhealthily obsess over someone who couldn't even care about them. She was nothing of the sort.
She paused. 'Wait...'
"…but you seem pretty persistent," he continued, his tone carrying the weight of someone who had dealt with similar situations . "I'd rather you not get yourself into too much trouble when you do eventually get in way over your head. And you will."
He was scolding her. He was actually scolding her.
The great LeBlanc, the Pale Lady of countless guises, found herself standing there, bemused, incredulous, and, for the first time in a very long while, utterly at a loss for words.
The sheer audacity of him, this magicless fool from a foreign world, to speak to her in such a manner. And yet, there was not a trace of arrogance in his tone. A maddening, unshakable sincerity that made her want to sneer and smile all at once.
He began to walk away then, toward the workshop door, his tone casual but his words deliberate. "You don't have to hide, you know. If you want to talk, just come by when I'm not busy. I don't like being followed."
She stared after him, speechless once more. The gall of this man. "Emilia." She said after him. "I'm Emilia. A gardener in your estate."
Asta paused, his expression softening. "Cool. You're welcome anytime. I'll make you a cloak when you do, and perhaps, one day, you'll tell me your true name."
She stood still as he turned and stepped into the workshop, the door closing gently behind him. A quiet breeze tugged at the edges of her cloak. 'He has a way of catching falsehoods,' she mused, a glimmer of curiosity lighting her eyes. 'It cannot be magic, for he wields none. Is it instinct, or perhaps a skill that can be learned?'
Her chestnut hair flowed with the wind as she finally made her decision, her lips curling into the faintest of smiles.
---
Darryl ducked beneath a sweeping strike, the head of the spear whistling inches above him. His short sword flashed in a swift counterattack, the blade glinting as it cut through the air.
The Demacian spearman before him leapt backward, his movements crisp and precise. With disciplined grace, he twisted his weapon, turning Darryl's momentum aside before settling back into a guarded stance.
Of course, he wasn't facing a real Demacian spearman, but having never fought one, Darryl had no way of knowing the difference.
He was still in awe. Emilia was a remarkable mage. From what he had witnessed, her mastery of illusions was extraordinary, the spearman he faced now was no exception. It was a solid, tangible illusion, so convincing that he could almost believe it real.
Darryl couldn't quite put it into words, but he knew one thing, that was impressive, Right?
Watching from a short distance, the gardener, Emilia, stood beside Asta, holding the black robe he had handed her a moment ago.
"This is made of Anti-Magic?" she asked, lifting the garment slightly to inspect its texture.
Asta nodded, a faint grin tugging at his lips. "Oh yeah. It can protect you from just about any magic attack a few times before I need to recharge it."
She tilted her head, curious. "It won't interfere with my own magic?"
"Nah. Not really," he replied with a shrug. His eyes flicked toward Darryl, who was now sitting on the ground, dusted from yet another defeat at the hands of the illusory spearman.
Emilia glanced at Darryl, anticipating the question he might ask. "You don't need to worry about him, Asta. While my illusion magic differ from his Earth magic, there are still things I can teach him. He has remarkable potential."
Asta chuckled lightly, unconcerned. "Oh, I'm not worried about that at all. He can become stronger than anyone with hardwork and determination."
She scarcely believed that. Not with his pathetic magic power anyway. Perhaps if she added something.
"And, call me captain." Asta added.
Emilia shook her head firmly, her expression resolute. "No."
On the cobblestones, Darryl nodded, his jaw set with determination. "Again!"
He sprang to his feet, tightening his grip around his short sword as mana surged through his veins, making the weapon hum faintly with latent energy.
A grim smile tugged at his lips as the spearman assumed its stance once more. Things were looking up, not just in the duel, but in his life. His… family had gained a new member.