Reborn in Type-Moon: Starting by Adopting Sakura - Chapter 48

They were talking casually when Riddell suddenly perked up with excitement. She obviously had some juicy gossip to share. "Oh, wait—I just remembered something absolutely hilarious that happened yesterday. Our dear Lord El-Melloi had one of his precious relics stolen by his own student. Ha!"

Yuu's eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "Stolen? Which relic?"

"Some sort of cloak."

"Do you know who took it?"

"Started as an Accounting Department mix-up, of all things." Riddell's glee was practically dripping through the phone. "Kayneth had a relic shipped from Macedonia, and entrusted it to his student, Waver, to deliver. No one imagined the boy would just take it and run."

A cloak? Yuu's mind immediately jumped to the artifact he'd appraised in Tokyo. The timing was too convenient to be coincidence. Regardless, even without his precious relic, Kayneth would still throw himself into the Holy Grail War. The man's ego wouldn't survive backing down at this stage. But not knowing which Heroic Spirit he'd manage to summon created an irritating blind spot in Yuu's planning.

This was problematic.

Waver... the name tugged at his memory until the face surfaced. Ah, yes—that earnest, sharp-eyed young man he'd encountered at a Clock Tower. Yuu made a point of remembering people with talent, even when they came wrapped in less-than-ideal packaging.

The boy hailed from some upstart magical family with all the pedigree of week-old fish, and his magical circuits were frankly underwhelming. But his mind—that was a different story entirely.

Three years ago, they'd crossed paths at a lecture, and Waver had brazenly announced his intention to write a thesis that would "shake the Clock Tower to its very foundations." Something about the New Century's approach to magecraft, challenging the established wisdom that older bloodlines automatically produced superior magi.

It was exactly the sort of revolutionary thinking that would send the old geezers into apoplectic fits. Whether his arguments actually held water remained to be seen, but the mere attempt would paint a target on his back the size of Big Ben.

Yuu had kindly advised the boy to avoid publishing such inflammatory material outright—better to let Kayneth review it first, perhaps soften some of the more incendiary passages before they set the entire Clock Tower ablaze. Whether Waver had actually heeded that counsel remained a mystery, but judging by current events, there was clearly bad blood brewing between teacher and student.

The theft of a priceless relic suggested their relationship had deteriorated far beyond academic disagreements.

"Has Kayneth prepared a new catalyst?" he asked.

"No idea. But early this morning, he boarded a cruise ship to Japan. Alone."

"Alone?" That raised interesting questions

"Yes."

"Got it. I'll treat you to grilled fish next time." He ended the call and turned the ignition.

So Kayneth was currently trapped on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean—ten days minimum before he reached Japanese shores, two weeks if the weather turned foul. That timeline meant his Servant was already summoned, but Yuu remained frustratingly in the dark about the heroic spirit's identity. Planning without that crucial intelligence felt like trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

As for Waver—had the boy actually stolen the catalyst to throw himself into the Holy Grail War? The idea seemed almost laughably far-fetched. For all his academic brilliance, Waver struck him as the type who'd faint at the sight of actual combat. More likely, this was some misguided attempt at proving a point to his arrogant mentor.

Still, stranger things had happened. Desperation had a way of turning even the most timid scholars into unlikely heroes.

Yuu yanked the wheel hard to the right, tires squealing in protest as the car whipped into a tight U-turn and sped toward the outskirts.

…

No one truly understood Waver Velvet's potential—except Yuu.

As a magus, Waver had been dealt a cruel hand from the very beginning. No family legacy to shelter him, no powerful mentor to guide his steps, no treasury of ancient knowledge passed down through generations. Half self-taught and fighting every inch of the way, he'd somehow managed to earn his place at the Clock Tower—the Association's most hallowed halls, where dreams came to wither under the weight of tradition.

That acceptance letter had felt like salvation itself.

He'd believed with every fiber of his being that he was destined to be the most exceptional student in the school's history. The brutal truth had crushed that hope without mercy.

Most scholarship students came from families with deep magical roots—bloodlines that stretched back six generations or more. The genuinely self-made were as rare as compassion among the faculty.

No instructor spared him so much as a glance. They moved through the halls as if he were invisible, reserving their precious attention for the children of ancient houses, the ones whose very names commanded respect. For someone like Waver—someone who'd crawled up from nothing—even getting a peek inside a library took near-begging.

It hadn't taken long for him to sink to the bottom of El-Melloi's class. Not through laziness or defiance, but through the simple, soul-crushing fact that he apparently wasn't worth the effort.

Three years ago, one lecturer had shown him unexpected kindness, opening doors to texts that had made his heart race with possibility. But when that person left the Clock Tower, the light went out of Waver's academic world. The corridors grew colder, the dismissals sharper, the loneliness more suffocating.

Yet somehow, he endured. Stubbornness was all he had left—a bitter fuel that kept him moving when everything else screamed for him to quit.

Why should a magus's worth be measured only by the accidents of birth? Why should brilliant ideas be crushed beneath the weight of tradition and snobbery? His instructors swept aside his research with empty courtesies and hollow smiles, treating his life's work like the foolish fantasies of a child who didn't know his place.

The injustice burned in his chest like acid. And finally, it had driven him past the breaking point.

Three agonizing years of development, one year of painstaking composition—and he had created what he knew was his vindication. Every word in the thesis had been chosen with desperation, every argument forged in the fires of his frustration. This was his chance—his one shot at proving that brilliance could emerge from anywhere, that the old ways weren’t the only ways.

But Kayneth had barely glanced at it before casting it aside like garbage.

"You're too delusional for research, Waver." The words lodged in his mind like barbs, each syllable dripping with contempt. The dismissive look in his professor's eyes would be seared into Waver's memory forever—the look of someone swatting away an annoying insect.

In nineteen years of grinding disappointment, nothing had ever hurt quite this deeply.

If Kayneth possessed even a fraction of the wisdom his position demanded, how could he fail to see the truth laid bare before him? The only explanation that made sense was that his professor saw him as such a non-entity that his ideas weren't even worth serious consideration.

Waver shook his head. No—it had to be jealousy. Fear that he posed a genuine threat to Kayneth’s comfortable position. The thought was unforgivable. His genius, capable of reshaping the very foundations of magecraft, had been trampled underfoot by one man’s petty prejudice.

In Waver's mind, the Association had revealed itself as nothing more than a festering monument to nepotism and decay.

He carried that rage like a weight in his chest, a constant ache that colored every interaction, every lecture, every dismissive glance from his so-called betters. The anger had nowhere to go, no outlet—until the day he overheard a conversation in the halls.

Kayneth was planning to enter some magical competition in the Far East. Another accolade to add to his already bloated collection, another chance to bask in unearned glory.

Waver threw himself into researching the Holy Grail War with the desperate hunger of a drowning man grasping for rope. What he discovered made his heart pound with something that felt dangerously close to hope.

Here was a contest where bloodlines meant nothing. Where centuries-old family crests carried no weight. Where ancient surnames and political connections were worthless currency. Only raw ability would determine the victor—pure, uncompromising merit.

It was brutal, yes. Deadly, certainly. But it was fair in a way the Clock Tower could never be.

For a genius crushed beneath the boot of circumstance, it represented the perfect stage for vindication.

His plan suddenly became clear. Kayneth’s catalyst would be his key to freedom.

The theft itself had been almost laughably simple, and within hours he had boarded a night flight to Japan. Clutching the ancient relic against his chest as the plane lifted off, Waver felt his lips curve into the first genuine smile he had worn in years. Below him, England shrank into darkness, taking with it every sneer, every dismissal, every crushing blow to his dreams.

"Watch closely, you worms of the Association!" he whispered to the empty cabin around him. "I'll show you what real genius looks like."