The aftermath of Charlotte's livestream was immediate. Confusion spread first. Then disbelief. Then absolute chaos. The livestream had ended less than ten minutes ago. Discussions erupted across both the surface world and the Witching Hour. Some focused on Lumen Enterprise and the implications of Charlotte publicly endorsing a Bareblood company. Others fixated on the announcement regarding Eidolons and what mass-produced mana entities could mean for the future.
Most people, however, were talking about something else entirely.
Charlotte Sweeiz was a man.
The internet exploded almost immediately. Forums crashed beneath the sudden surge of traffic, social media platforms flooded with clips of the broadcast, and discussion boards devolved into outright warfare. Every recorded copy of the reveal spread faster than moderators could delete them, ensuring that anyone who had somehow missed the livestream would inevitably see it within the hour.
The image was everywhere.
The image spread across the internet with frightening speed, Aster Collins smiling at the camera, sticking his tongue out like a child who had just gotten away with something, and ending the livestream before anyone could demand an explanation.
Entire communities spent hours analyzing those final seconds. Most reached the same conclusion. Charlotte was a menace.
Meanwhile, inside Raven Manor, Persephone experienced something far more alarming. For the first time in years, her mana circulation technique failed to suppress her reaction completely. The tea she had been drinking shot straight out of her mouth and across the room.
Selene took the hit directly to the face.
Valeria's eyes widened.
Edith simply stared at the screen. Then at Persephone. Then back at the screen again. For perhaps the first time in recent memory, the Panthera matriarch looked completely and utterly lost for words.
Gladius quietly took one step backward.
The young witch sat frozen in place.
Across from her, Persephone remained equally frozen, her usual expressionless face somehow managing to convey absolute disbelief.
Silence filled the room. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Nobody even breathed particularly loudly.
Eventually, Selene wiped the tea from her face.
"...Grandmother?"
Persephone stared at the black screen. Then with the tea cup in her hand. Then back at the screen. Then at the tea cup again. The ancient witch slowly set it down.
"Since when can a man use spells?"
Nobody present had one. Edith remained seated nearby. She had not moved since the livestream ended. Valeria sat beside her. Neither woman spoke. Neither woman blinked particularly often. Gladius quietly excused himself from the room and had waited outside the room. The Eidolon possessed enough intelligence to recognize danger. Remaining nearby felt unwise.
Elsewhere, inside the Hall of Witches, Mildred Rossi had been enjoying what could only be described as an unusually peaceful day. No rogue witches had set anything on fire. No supernatural incidents had been reported. No students from the Lunarium had accidentally, or intentionally, created another mess in Nocturne. For several glorious hours, paperwork had been her greatest concern.
Naturally, that was when the door to her office burst open and one of her assistants rushed inside.
"Mistress Rossi!!!"
Mildred didn't look up.
"Mmh?"
The assistant took a breath.
"Charlotte Sweeiz is actually Aster Collins."
Mildred continued writing. Three seconds passed. Then she stopped.Slowly.
Very slowly.
She looked up from whatever she was working on.
"...What? Aster Collins? The founder of Lumen Enterprise?"
"The very same, mistress."
Mildred stared. The assistant stared back. Several seconds passed. Then Mildred pointed toward the door.
"Leave. I need to check up on some things"
The assistant immediately obeyed with a nod. The moment the door closed, Mildred buried her face in both hands. The paperwork could wait. Reality clearly could not.
Across the Witching Hour, reactions varied wildly. Many witches refused to believe it. Others immediately began searching for evidence proving it false. Several older witches simply sat down. Because if Charlotte Sweeiz was actually a man, then an uncomfortable number of assumptions regarding magic had just been violently thrown out a window. The Hall of Witches received thousands of inquiries. Then tens of thousands. Most carried similar questions.
Can men use magic all this time?
Has this always been possible?
Did Charlotte discover something?
Is Lunarium accepting male students for witch's curriculum?
Why didn't anyone tell us?
The final question appeared so often that entire departments stopped responding to it. Nobody knew. For centuries, the answer had always been simple. Women inherited magic from the moon and men did not. That was simply how the world worked. Or at least how everyone thought it worked.
Charlotte had apparently disagreed and overturned several centuries of common sense. The reaction among men born into witch families proved even more dramatic. Some cried of course. Quietly in their lonesome. Alone. For generations, sons of witches occupied an uncomfortable position. Useful, Important, respected, even. Yet never truly equal. They watched sisters inherit magic. Watched mothers perform miracles. Watched entire family legacies pass around them. Many accepted it. Some resented it. Others simply learned to live with it.
Then Charlotte revealed herself.
The strongest witch alive. The coven mother of Lunarium. The creator of Eidolons. The Heretical Witch, mastery over different types of spells. The woman they had spent years admiring. Was apparently a man.
For the first time in centuries, possibility existed. Applications to Lunarium surged immediately. Many contained only a single sentence. I would like to learn magic. Others contained considerably more emotional language. Some required entire homunculi teams to sort through properly. Bareblood men reacted differently. Far differently, actually. Entirely predictably.
The chuunibyou population experienced a historic resurgence. Videos appeared online within hours. Young men attempted spellcasting gestures in mirrors. Others purchased robes in preparation for the upcoming new school year. Some began introducing themselves with titles. Several social media accounts suddenly adopted names containing words such as Shadow, Void, Arcane, Dragon, and Eternal. One particularly enthusiastic individual is already planning to vlog the entire upcoming semester, which of course he's planning to ask the coven staff if he could do so.
Despite this setback, enthusiasm remained high. Curious men flooded Lunarium's website, with curious women following close behind. Online enrollment had only recently been introduced, and the servers lasted a heroic eleven minutes before collapsing beneath the weight of thousands of applications. The homunculi IT team managing the system brought it back online, watched it crash again, fixed it a second time, then witnessed an even more spectacular failure shortly afterward.
By the end of the day, the website and the homunculi were both fighting for survival. The website lost first.
Business leaders focused on entirely different concerns; the reveal itself barely registered. Lumen Enterprise, however, did. Investors began investigating the company almost immediately, and what they uncovered left them alternating between concern and disbelief. Research projects, patents, and development divisions all pointed to technology years ahead of its time. By morning, interest in Lumen Enterprise had skyrocketed.
Meanwhile, governments discovered a completely different reason to panic.
Eidolons.
Charlotte had announced the mass production and selling of Eidolons. That sentence alone generated emergency meetings. The implications proved disturbing. Intelligent, powerful, and loyal magical entities. Governments throughout both worlds suddenly realized Charlotte intended to place such beings into public hands. The resulting discussions lasted well into the night. Many involved raised voices. Some involved threats. Several involved alcohol. None produced useful conclusions.
Meanwhile, the individual responsible for all of this remained completely absent. No explanations. No clarification. No follow-up statements. Nothing.
At least, not publicly.
In truth, Aster Collins had already moved on.
When questions eventually reached him through the usual channels, his response was simple, almost casual. Lumen Enterprise was expanding into a new line of work involving exploration beyond known mapped regions. Positions would soon open for what he only vaguely referred to as "adventuring roles," described as structured expeditions into the vast unknown outside established territories.
He did not elaborate further.
As for Eidolons, he framed them in similarly measured terms. Not weapons. Not tools. But autonomous magical entities, closer to companions than constructs. Legally, he suggested they should be treated with protections comparable to domesticated animals or regulated artificial intelligences. A classification that immediately sparked confusion, debate, and no small amount of controversy among legal and magical circles alike.
Security officials, meanwhile, were far less interested in definitions. Their concern was simpler: anything capable of independent action at that scale, regardless of classification, would require strict oversight frameworks before widespread deployment.
Aster, for his part, made no attempt to argue.
He simply waited for the discussion to begin.
Aster Collins sat comfortably in his office, feet resting on his desk, a snack in one hand, while his phone vibrated nonstop beside him. He didn't bother looking at it.
Calls kept coming anyway.
Persephone. Declined.
Mildred Rossi. Declined.
An unknown government number. Declined.
Aurora. He paused for half a second, then declined.
The phone rang again almost immediately.
Emilia. Declined.
It didn't stop after that. Messages piled up faster than he could ignore them, and missed calls quickly climbed into the hundreds.
Aster took another bite of his snack and leaned back slightly, letting the notifications continue uninterrupted.
Entire governments sought explanations. Ancient witches demanded answers. Journalists begged for interviews. Investors requested meetings. Aster ignored all of them.
Outside, the world descended deeper into chaos. Inside his office in Lumen Enterprise, he leaned back comfortably in his chair. Then took another bite of his snack.
For once, absolutely none of this was his problem. At least that was what he intended to keep telling himself.