My Bugged System Made Me Too OP!

Chapter 133: If only you were here… Marcus

"Well..." Noah said, his voice dropping into a casual, slightly dismissing pitch that he hoped would steer her away from digging any deeper.

He offered a small, shrug of his shoulders, looking down at his feet for a fraction of a second to sell the deception. "...he’s not very popular. He prefers to keep to himself, mostly. He isn’t the type of person who looks for attention or cares about making a name for himself in the upper districts."

Evangeline listened to his explanation, her sharp eyes softening as she watched the earnestness in her son’s face.

The deep, protective suspicion that had briefly clouded her features seemed to dissolve, replaced once again by the profound, overwhelming gratitude that had taken hold of her ever since she saw the frost spike manifest over his palm.

She nodded slowly, a warm, genuine smile returning to her face, smoothing out the lines of exhaustion that had dominated her expression when she first walked through the front door.

She took a step closer to him, her hands clasping together over her apron.

"I’ll like to meet this Mr. White some day," she said, her voice rich with a maternal warmth that made Noah’s chest tighten instantly. "...and actually thank him. I want to look him in the eye and thank him properly for what he’s done for you, and for what he’s given back to this family."

Noah felt another sharp, localized pang at her words, the emotional strike hitting him so suddenly it felt physical.

A cold wave of guilt washed through his stomach, and he had to fight the instinctive urge to look away from her beautiful, trusting gaze.

He slightly bit his lower lip, his teeth pressing into the skin just hard enough to anchor himself against the sudden rush of conflicting emotions swirling deep within his chest.

The irony of the situation was almost too heavy to bear.

He stared at her, the silence of the hallway pressing in on his ears, and he thought to himself, ’He’s... actually standing in front of you, Mom...’

There was no eccentric old master hidden away in the shadows of the lower districts.

There was no mysterious benefactor named Mr. White wandering the alleys, looking for broken academy students to save.

The powerful magus who had broken through the impossible barriers of the apprentice rank, the one who possessed the strength to completely rewrite their family’s miserable destiny, was the very boy she had raised.

He was the one standing right here in these worn clothes, carrying a legendary power beneath his skin that he couldn’t even dare to name out loud. He was his own teacher, his own savior, and his own master.

But he couldn’t tell her that.

Noah forced his features to steady, swallowing the bitter taste of the lie, and only smiled back at her.

It was a small, practiced expression that didn’t quite reach the corners of his eyes, but in the dim light of the corridor, it was more than enough to satisfy her.

"I’ll..." he started, his voice caught in a brief, hesitant hitch before he smoothed it over with a nod. "...be sure to tell him that, Mom. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the thought."

As the words left his lips, Noah felt the heavy weight of the rest of his fabricated reality pressing against the back of his teeth.

He also wanted to talk about the story he already planned for he and this Mr. White.

He had spent hours structuring the narrative, aligning the details with absolute precision so that every timeline, every excuse, and every sudden shift in his behavior would make perfect sense to anyone who asked, especially the authorities if word of his advancement ever leaked out.

He had originally planned to tell her the brutal, horrifying truth of what had happened to him—how he had been targeted, overpowered, and literally buried alive by Lloyd.

He had envisioned describing the absolute, suffocating darkness of that dirt, the terrifying weight of the earth pressing down on his chest, and how this mysterious Mr. White was the one who had miraculously found him, dug him out of his premature grave, and saved his life at the very last second.

He had planned to explain how the powerful rogue magus, seeing some hidden spark of resilience in a boy who had survived such an atrocity, had decided right then and there to take him under his wing and start training him as a personal disciple.

It was a perfect, bulletproof cover story. It justified his absence, it explained his hatred for the academy crowd, and it provided a legendary origin for his sudden explosion in magical strength.

But now, looking across the narrow space at the two people who mattered most to him, the words completely died in his throat.

Seeing the sheer, unadulterated expression of joy on his mother’s and Amelia’s faces, he simply couldn’t bring himself to say anything about the grave or the dirt.

The atmosphere in the house was lighter than it had been in years; the crushing shadow of his suspension and their poverty had been temporarily banished by the bright, beautiful miracle of his magic.

If he told them about Lloyd’s cruelty now, if he described the terror of being buried alive, the joy in his mother’s eyes would instantly shatter into a million pieces of raw, maternal horror.

She wouldn’t celebrate his breakthrough; she would be consumed by panic, fear, and the agonizing realization of how close she had come to losing her son forever. The evening would turn into a wake of what-ifs and terrors.

He could only smile, keeping his secrets locked away in the dark corners of his mind where they belonged. ’I... can’t ruin the mood with that now, can I?’ He thought.

Some burdens were meant to be carried alone, and if keeping his family happy meant enduring the cold weight of his own trauma in silence, he would do it without a single complaint.

The horror of what Lloyd had done to him belonged to the future—it was a debt that would be collected in due time, with interest. Tonight belonged to them.

His mother gave him one last, lingering look of pure affection, her fingers releasing his shoulders as she finally turned her body completely toward the living space.

The heavy, dragging exhaustion that usually defined her posture at the end of a long shift seemed to have been entirely forgotten.

"Well," Evangeline said, her voice taking on a brisk, energetic tone as she began to walk past the dining table and went straight into the small kitchen area.

She reached for the strings of her apron, tying them behind her back with a quick, practiced snap of her wrists.

She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes twinkling with a rare, playful light. "Since today’s such a special day... I’ll be cooking something special also. We aren’t just eating stale bread and broth tonight."

Amelia let out a small, victorious cheer at the announcement, immediately trailing after her mother’s footsteps like a shadow, her previous disappointment entirely forgotten as the promise of a feast filled the house.

As Evangeline stepped across the threshold and entered the small, cramped kitchen, the familiar scent of dried herbs and old wood greeted her.

She paused beside the heavy stone counter, the strings of her apron secure around her waist, and she smiled warmly again.

The ambient heat of the pilot flame on the hearth seemed to catch the edges of her expression, casting a soft, golden glow across features that had been tight with worry for far too many months.

She rested her palms flat against the smooth, worn surface of the cabinet, letting the physical sensation ground her, and she thought to himself that he finally broke through.

The reality of it settled deep into her bones, sweet and sudden. Her boy was no longer the tragic exception of the lower districts, no longer the target of cruel gossip or the recipient of pitying glances from the neighborhood stallholders. He had crossed the line. He was an adept.

But the warmth in her chest didn’t last.

Without warning, the golden light seemed to drain from her face as her expression suddenly turned sad, the corners of her mouth trembling as a sharp, familiar ache pierced through her brief happiness.

The transition was violent in its quietness, the joy evaporating to leave behind a cold, hollow expanse.

Heavy tears welled up in her eyes again, blurring the outlines of the copper pots hanging from the low ceiling beams, the moisture catching the flickering firelight before tracking slowly down her dusty cheeks.

She looked out the small, square window above the basin, staring blindly into the gathering dark of the city alleys, and her shoulders slumped as the old weight returned.

"I wonder what you would have said about this..." she whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound against the crackle of the hearth, thick with a grief that time had managed to dull but never truly heal.

She closed her eyes, the tears spilling over her lashes as she let the name slip past her lips like a forbidden invocation. "...if you were here... Marcus..."

The name felt heavy, dangerous, and entirely out of place in the middle of their celebration.

For a fraction of a second, she let herself imagine a different version of this small kitchen—one where a man’s laughter echoed against the low rafters, where a father’s heavy hand would have clapped Noah’s shoulder with roaring, unfiltered pride, celebrating a dual-element legacy that had finally come to fruition.

Then, the phantom vanished, leaving only the cold draft from the window.