"Oliver Vin…" Benjamin replied.

At that, Franky rubbed his temple—fatigue, or disappointment. "Did the Council approve?" he asked, hoping for a no.

"They did…"

"This man burned and leveled half of Cameroon… Without us, the Council’s gone to hell," Franky muttered, crestfallen.

"Yes. But he’s the best candidate if we want Nero prepared for anything. And…» Benjamin began, but Franky cut him off.

«And?!..» he shot back, acidly.

"And he’s also one of the biggest minds in the Empire, a co-founder of the Cameroon Society of Scholars, and he’s running another classified project with a fellow researcher Señor Dante Son Greencliff," Benjamin said only for Franky to interrupt again.

"So you want the ‘genius’ mage-scientist who nearly destroyed an entire city Cameroon, a huge city, for heaven’s sake for fun… to teach Nero not just magic, but science, too?" Franky snapped.

"I understand how you feel," Dan Rossi said. "But yes. It’s our best option."

Franky sipped his now-cold tea, trying to calm down. "If Nero gets seriously hurt during training, I’ll feed that brat to the local wolves. Deal?" he said on a breath, with a grim smile.

"If anything happens to Nero, I’ll be first in line," Benjamin answered.

Their fears weren’t unfounded. Oliver Vin, a native of the old border city of Cameroon…

Not long before the crisis, he single-handedly put down a revolt by local nobles.
But…

His methods were anything but humane. In a single night, with his own hands, he eliminated seventeen influential families of Cameroon. Firing off lethal spells left and right, he visited every manor of the city’s most powerful and left behind only ash and oceans of blood.

On the one hand, most of them were part of a plot against the Emperor. On the other, innocents died too nearly half, as it turned out, had planned nothing at all.

So the Council resolved to execute him.

"‘The uprising interfered with my research…’" Benjamin read, then slid the rolled sheet back into his pocket. After that, His Majesty the Emperor overruled the Council, decreeing that Oliver would atone by serving the Empire of Dustin.

That night, everyone learned of his monstrous power. They promptly forgot his scientific work and contributions to magic.

That was when Benjamin stepped in.
He petitioned the Emperor to have Oliver Vin work off his "sentence" as Nero’s tutor.

"I’m still stunned he agreed…" Franky mumbled, rubbing his temple.

Time had passed; the tea was gone and the sweets had been polished off long ago Izzy had helped with that. Benjamin and Franky sat quietly, drifting into broader talk about life…

A knock at the window. They were ready to scold someone for such improper behavior, but then they saw a great brown eagle tapping the pane with its beak.

A roll of parchment was tied to its taloned leg with a red ribbon.

Benjamin opened the window a crack and untied the fine parchment from the noble bird’s claw.

Stella clicked his tongue, sighed heavily as he read, then, still exhaling tension, glanced at Franky. "Pff… say, you got anything stronger?" Benjamin’s eyes slid meaningfully toward a few crystal shot glasses hidden behind the shelves…

Meanwhile…
Outside, a ruby-eyed girl was showing off her fencing to her black-haired friend. Each held a blunted wooden sword.

They’d decided on this "spar" after Nero had casually shown Izzy around the grounds places he himself didn’t know well.

Izzy knew perfectly well that Nero, unlike her, didn’t have a knack for swordplay. So she kept teasing him, flicking and flowing, neatly knocking the sword from his hand.

"I don’t get h-how you do that…" Nero panted, mouth open, barely fending off Izzy’s pressure.

"You think I get it?" Izzy snorted, trying for the umpteenth time to slap the sword from "Loki’s" grip.

To everyone’s surprise, it didn’t work. Having fallen for that move maybe twenty times, Nero simply and calmly pulled his lead hand well back instead of trying to block with the blade.

Izzy whiffed.

The moment "Loki’s" face spread into a grin, Izzy was the one off balance.
"Ha... did you see that? I totally—ow—that hurts!" he yelped as Izzy smacked his wrist with the wooden sword.

"Not fair… ow." And again.

"Hey, that’s not...nhey!" And a third time. Suppressing laughter with a sly smile, Izzy kept gloating.

"All right, so as usual: 20:0. Ha-ha!" she declared.

«20:0, what?" Nero said, baffled.

"Well… fine 12:2,» Izzy said, nearly bending double with laughter.

"Liar…" Nero was still a little sulky, but he forgot it quickly and asked Izzy to go for a walk.

In truth, it ended 16:2. They’d both just counted badly.