“I left the Celsius Territory to my older sister, and the security and management of the Floating Fortress to Eliette and Lyne. Being away for a few days won't cause any major issues.”
The Blue Tower Lord, who had boarded the Floating Fortress Mini, wrote with a mana pen. As she did, the letters seeped into the panel, flashing with mana light.
The letters drawn by the mana-filled pen also served as a magic circle. As the Blue Tower Lord input the commands, the Floating Fortress Mini reflected that magic.
*Vroom.* As the Universal Apple at the center of the Floating Fortress Mini floated up, the Floating Fortress Mini moved smoothly.
“The Floating Fortress Mini will take the trajectory of the celestial equator to avoid detection from the ground. The estimated arrival time is 11 hours. We'll have plenty of time left, so let's hear Shea's story on the way.”
“…(Nod).”
“Yes! The journey won't be boring!”
At those words, the Sword Empress nodded, and Hilde replied with a cheerful laugh. The Blue Tower Lord smiled, then leaned against the panel and brushed her hair back.
“I like proactive students. Even if I didn't invite them.”
“Proactive students are the ones who eavesdrop on classes! If you don't have passion, you don't take action!”
“It's fine. You two following me was within my expectations.”
For the Blue Tower Lord, who possessed the Demon God, to leave her post even for a short while was not good news for the chaotic Magic Federation. Therefore, the Blue Tower Lord planned to go and return as quietly as possible.
However, the Sword Empress was devoted to her disciple, and Hilde was desperate to gather information even here. It was impossible to separate the two from her.
“I'll explain the plan briefly. Currently, all information from the Lilac Principality has been cut off. So our goal is to drop from the atmosphere using the Floating Fortress Mini, land, and gather intelligence on the Lilac Principality.”
“Hmm~ Didn't you say the King of Sins is there? Won't it be dangerous~?”
“We will head to the Lilac Principality's fifth city, Neo York. It's a city over 300km away from Lailakia. Even the King of Sins wouldn't be watching the entire country every single moment.”
“What if they can~?”
The Blue Tower Lord shrugged at Hilde's worry.
“Then they'd be able to do the same thing on a continental scale. If we can't avoid surveillance no matter what we do, there's no point in avoiding it.”
“How rational~.”
She didn't bother with useless assumptions and worries. The Blue Tower Lord still possessed the refreshingly straightforward nature of a mage.
“And in the meantime, we agreed to hear Shea's future information. The more information we have, the more countermeasures we can come up with. Right, Shea?”
“Y-Yeah!”
The nervous Shea shouted, feigning composure. The Blue Tower Lord prepared a chalkboard, and Hilde lay face down with a pillow, waiting for Shea's words in a comfortable position. The Sword Empress had her arms crossed, but her entire attention was focused on Shea.
“Uh, um, you see. When I became aware of my regression... No. The awareness was the third time, I think. At first...”
Under everyone's scrutiny, Shea seemed burdened, mumbling and trailing off several times. As the silence lengthened, Shea couldn't endure it and cried out.
“Ugh! I can't explain it! Hughes, say something!”
“Pardon? Me?”
“Yeah. You're good at talking!”
“I have to talk about Shea's past that no one else knows, how am I supposed to do that?”
Am I your spokesperson? They're listening to find out about your past, why are you asking me?
But if I leave Shea like this, we'll just be making small talk even after 11 hours pass. It can't be helped.
“Let's start from the beginning. Your memories are jumbled because of the regression, right?”
“Yeah. No? Yeah.”
“...”
The regression has an effect, but it's not strictly because of that, and she originally has a bad memory... But the major information is indeed because of the regression. That must be what she means.
“Then let's go way back to the very beginning.”
“The very beginning?”
“Yes. Everyone has a beginning, and it's the same for Shea's regression. The first footprint stepped onto fresh snow is noticeably clear. Memories are the same. There must surely be memories of the beginning left inside Shea. How about starting from there?”
Shea is an emotional person. Just by stimulating her emotions, similar memories will pop out on their own. The memories I stimulated were Shea's beginning. The time before regression or anything else.
“...No. Not really, I don't have any memories.”
Even as she said the words that rendered my efforts in vain, Shea was gradually sinking into the past.
I have mind-reading abilities. Yet even so, I couldn't read Shea's past. Even though she must clearly have memories of her childhood, before gaining regression.
The reason was likely because Shea wasn't recalling her past from before her regression at all.
Shea muttered with a hollow face.
“Because, back then, memories or whatever... there was nothing.”
***
There was nothing.
No family, no friends, no money, no knowledge, no background.
Shea was thrown into the world with only her name. To be precise, she was thrown in front of an orphanage.
It wasn't a rare occurrence. The Military Nation was a country founded by destroying the Kingdom through a coup. After the Knight of Rebellion, Juetang Patracion, won the duel against the Kingdom, he had to face relentless duel challenges for nearly five years.
In the resistance that followed, people died regardless of gender or age. Far more than the number that died during the coup.
The number of orphans was greater than the number of dead parents. Shea was ordinarily unhappy within that ordinary tragedy.
However, it took a long time for Shea to realize that her unhappiness was ordinary.
In the orphanage, Shea was just a scrawny, unimpressive girl. Her hair was cut so short it was hard to tell if she was a boy or a girl, which was a sort of defensive measure to protect the orphanage children from human trafficking. Of course, it's doubtful they would have been properly cared for even if there was no human trafficking. Her personality was sharp and she was highly wary, growing up hearing that she lacked charm. Just like an ordinary orphan you could find anywhere.
Receiving rations that the Military Nation distributed by plundering the granaries of the old Kingdom, the children barely filled their starving stomachs and merely survived.
No education, no purpose, and no hope. Every day was an endless struggle against the slowly passing time, and time was murdered leaving behind too long a death rattle. Growing up ragged amidst the ruins, Shea was thrown into society bare-handed.
Meanwhile, society had changed drastically. The Military Nation established its system and placed shackles on humanity, and Shea accepted those shackles without harboring any doubts.
Implanted with a bio-terminal, wearing a uniform packet suited for labor, she was put to work doing simple manual labor.
Shea was an underachiever who had only attended the Primary Citizen School. What was given to someone like her was only manual labor. Packing supplies, carrying them to the conveyor belt, and the day was over. She wasn't particularly sturdy, so every night she would groan from muscle pain.
A frog in a well only sees the sky cut out in a circle. Shea was the same. She simply existed without knowing what a better life was or what a happier emotion felt like.
Then one day, a large siren rang out, and Shea dressed properly and went out in front of her house to wait, just as she had been educated. Citizens in the same situation as Shea lined up along the road. Feeling bored, Shea looked around at the faces of the people around her.
Same clothes, same expressions, and same emotions. Everyone was exactly like Shea. With utterly exhausted faces, they were just waiting for today to end.
The moment she realized that, Shea felt a profound emptiness.
What was the reason? Why did she feel that emotion at that exact moment? She didn't know the reason. Shea lacked the ability to explain that emotion, that feeling.
Soon, a large military auto-carriage arrived. Soldiers in uniforms who got off the military auto-carriage packed the people tightly into the vehicle. Inside the military auto-carriage, filled to the point of worrying about overloading, Shea was dragged off somewhere, still not knowing what was going on.
That place was a battlefield.
She didn't know where it was. She didn't know who the enemy was. She only found out later by hearing that the opponents were the Wild Nations' jackals and the Cult Master's combat unit. Even knowing that didn't change anything.
Wearing a military uniform packet, given only a single gun, Shea was thrown into the battlefield knowing nothing. The commander ordered them to move, and Shea walked and walked according to orders.
The land of the Wild Nations was desolate, and encountering anything was rare. Shea just walked. According to the stories that barely reached them, the Wild Nations had no system, so the main force had marched all the way to the heart of the Wild Nations. The commander boldly proclaimed that it was an overwhelmingly victorious war and there was no need to worry.
Shea believed those words. She had no choice but to believe them.
But the one who won was the Military Nation, not Shea.
One night. Shea woke up to a loud explosion. When she came to her senses and first ran out of the tent, light and heat suddenly exploded, blowing away the tent Shea had been in without a trace. The comrades inside it also vanished entirely.
There was no time to feel sadness. Shea threw away the gun she was holding and rolled on the ground. Then, the gun burned red and exploded with a bang. If she had been holding it, the shrapnel would have torn her innards apart. Shea panted, hurting from the hot air entering her lungs, and raised her head.
Sparks were flying in the sky. A giant bird made of steel scattered hundreds of flaming feathers onto the ground. Then, places all over the ground burned up, and people died.
Juggernaut. A mechanical weapon of the Wild Nations created by the Golden Mirror.
The other troops of the Wild Nations were a disorganized rabble, unable to stop the Military Nation's systematic unit tactics. However, the Wild Nations' mystical Juggernaut possessed a strength that overwhelmed units simply by existing. The 'Cult Master' with an Innate Demonic Path was a being that drew out 100% of the Juggernaut's power. Even the Military Nation was wary of the Wild Nations' Juggernauts.
...Of course, this was also a fact she learned later. At the time, Shea didn't know of the Juggernaut's existence, its danger, or how she ended up encountering one.
The unit was annihilated in an instant. Both the tents and the people burned equally. The Wild Nations, destroyed by alchemy, were another kind of cavalry tribe. They were fast and brutal, gnawing away at the stationary unit in an instant.
They said we were winning.
They said everything would be fine.
Shea resented the commander and screamed inwardly, but the target of that resentment was no longer in this world. Instead.
“This isn't the place!”
She heard someone's furiously angry voice.
“I brought the Golden Mirror at the cost of the Cult Master's life, and this is just one unit of foot soldiers?!”
“T-That... According to intelligence, there was an expensive unit here...”
“Does this look expensive to you?! They're just lumps of meat without a single drop of alchemical substance!!”
An explosion sounded along with the shout. Screams vomited out terrible pain before gradually stopping. Having burned a subordinate, someone seemed unsatisfied and shouted violently.
“We were caught by the bait! Someone deceived us!”
Bait.
Only then did Shea vaguely realize what had happened to her unit.
It was all Shea. The commander, the comrades she walked with, and Shea too. Walking along without knowing anything, they had arrived at the final destination called death. They were probably bait to hook the enemy's mystery.
She had been manipulated without even knowing what she was, and used as bait.
What kind of feeling was it? Anger? Emptiness?
Or... pity? Towards whom?
Shea doesn't know. She doesn't remember, and she had neither the means nor the leisure to describe that emotion.
“There's a survivor.”
Something flew at Shea, who was staying still. It rolled on the ground, and it was an alchemy-made bomb. Shea, not even knowing what it was, stared blankly at the bomb.
Until it exploded and blew off her face.
“Don't leave a single one alive.”
With the voice fading away like an echo as her end, Shea met her first death.