Was it about six hundred years ago?
There was a great war that threw the entire world into chaos.
The war, which broke out after the Sacred Council at the far east and the Demon King’s Army at the far west both ran amok, ended when a great hero appeared and smashed in the heads of both sides.
The actual fighting lasted barely a year or so, but the scars the war left behind were immense.
After the war ended, I settled in a village in the northern part of this eastern continent and founded an orphanage.
I took in and raised children who had lost their families to the war, children who truly could not survive on their own.
Since every person has their own talent, I gave each of those children the education best suited to them.
Some became archmages, some became respected scholars, and some became swordsmen whose names rang across the continent.
But not all of them were like that.
There were children who, despite desperate effort, never reached the heights they desired; and there were children who, despite overflowing talent, let time pass by heedlessly and ended up mediocre.
And among the children in that orphanage, the one I remember most was the child who chased after love and ran far, far away overnight.
What in the world had started it?
“Big Sis, what is love?”
There was a girl with red hair that fell down to her waist who had asked me that.
There was a small scar on her forehead, and even when I offered to heal it, she said it was a wound she got when she first learned magic and that she wanted to keep it.
“Lesha, you don’t even know that?”
“Then do you know, Daiton?”
“Of course I do. Love is, you know, when you go to that back alley over there, the scary bearded man and the mean bakery lady do it every day…”
“That is not what love is!!”
At Lesha’s furious punches, Daiton fled far away.
I gently stroked Lesha’s head, now a little taller than me, and said,
“Love is nothing.”
It was not because love was something that had no connection to me that I said that.
Love, in the end, was an abstract thing that could exist and disappear, or not exist and then come into being.
But I added one more sentence.
“But it is also everything. It can solve any problem.”
It truly was so.
Something deeper than any other emotion, richer than any other emotion, and capable of letting one overcome any emotion.
There were many kinds of love, but if it was not romantic love between a man and a woman, but love between one person and another, then it was a story that applied to me as well.
Because in the era when I first opened my eyes in this world, there had been someone like a mother who gave me something called love.
If not for her, perhaps I would have wiped out humanity.
“So if you ever come to possess love, cherish it.”
Though it would eventually disappear someday, precisely because of that, she should keep the radiant thread of that bond connected for even a moment longer.
Lesha tilted her head as if she could not quite understand my words, but that was probably all I could say to her.
Perhaps the answer Lesha had wanted was about love between men and women, but it seemed that I truly had no connection to that.
And the incident happened, perhaps less than a year after that day.
Lesha kicked open the orphanage door and shouted,
“Love!! Is nothing!!”
Just as I was staring at her with a dumbfounded expression, wondering what she was suddenly going on about,
“But!! It is also everything!!”
And behind her appeared a boy whose fingers were interlaced with Lesha’s.
He was about three years away from adulthood.
His long but neatly groomed platinum-blond hair was tied behind him, and judging from the clothes he wore, he was plainly a noble, no matter how shabby he looked.
Unlike simply worn and tattered crude garments, they carried the feel of meticulous hands having gone into them.
“I, I am! From the far south, the Kingdom of Delberg, the son of Count Clanter—”
Just as the boy stammered and tried to say something, Lesha cut him off and shouted,
“Anyway, Big Sis! That’s how it is, so goodbye!!”
“No, wait, what, what??”
Even for me, it was difficult not to be flustered in that situation.
As I stood there blankly, not even knowing what was happening, Lesha grabbed the boy’s hand and vanished in a flash.
And she never returned.
That night, it was only natural that Daiton, who had been planning to propose to Lesha once he became an adult, looked as if he were about to cry.
After she left like that, who knew whether she lived well or not.
I did wonder if sending even a single letter was really so difficult.
◇
《On the Lost Kingdom - Eibel Ehil Clanter》
The moment I turned the cover of the book, my eyes were captured by the words that appeared.
●
Before I begin, I beg forgiveness from my ancestors, who dwell in heaven alongside the Lord on high.
His Majesty the great King Adriat Ehil Clanter, founder of the majestic Kingdom of Grausella and progenitor of the Clanter Dynasty.
Her Majesty Queen Lesha Ergar Clanter, the great archmage who stood at his side, overturned heaven and earth, and opened a new age.
May the two of them protect our descendants forevermore.
●
On the page where those brief words alone filled the entire side, there were photographs transcribed through magic.
The photograph on the left was only faintly familiar and difficult to recognize, but the photograph on the right contained a face that matched my memories.
Coincidentally enough, it was the face of someone with even the same name.
Long, flowing red hair, eyes as red as that hair, and lastly, a small scar on the forehead.
“Lesha…”
I did not know what kind of life she had lived, but I could tell it must have been quite eventful.
Though I had no idea how she had lived such that she overturned a country and founded a kingdom.
If she was happy, then that was enough.
I stared at that page for a while, sinking into memories, then turned it.
From there onward, the history of the kingdom was written.
How they overthrew some kingdom, or subjugated some duchy.
Or how they signed a treaty with some country, bringing prosperity to the kingdom.
Historical fact and content passed down as legend were mixed together, making it feel like reading a storybook.
For example, if I read the part about the kingdom’s early days, there was a passage saying that when Lesha gestured, the sky split apart.
…That was a legend, right? I don’t remember teaching her anything like that.
It would have been fun if I could read it slowly, but since I did not have that much time, I accelerated my brain with magic and read.
If someone else saw me from the side, it would look as if I were not reading the contents at all and was simply flipping the pages one after another.
In fact, I could feel the village chief looking at me from over there with eyes that seemed to say, Of course.
I quickly read the book, and since it did not seem to contain anything particularly helpful, I quickly moved my hand to the next volume.
This time, before Cassian could take it out for me, I simply used telekinesis.
The village chief seemed slightly surprised to see that, but it was nothing for me to mind.
The next volume contained the kingdom’s dark age and revival. I flipped through it quickly.
The volume after that contained the kingdom’s golden age. It likewise contained nothing useful.
Then the book I took hold of was something like the autobiography of this person named Eibel.
Born as a princess of the kingdom, what sort of childhood she spent, and how she lived afterward.
Her mother’s expectations growing greater by the day, her father’s pressure. Unable to endure it, she fled here and there within the castle and met the knight Aldhelm.
The days in which, though she acted perfectly on the surface, behind the scenes she agonized over an impossible love between a princess and a knight.
To be honest, it was a story I had seen quite a lot.
In this stagnant world where something resembling the Middle Ages continued endlessly, even if one wrote books based solely on actual history, thousands of similar stories would likely come out.
Just when I thought this book might be another miss, the atmosphere of the book suddenly changed.
A war that erupted without warning, and the king’s death, which followed in an instant.
With archmages and Masters pouring in from the enemy ranks by the handful, the war situation became hopeless, and in the end, the capital fell.
At the king’s dying command, Eibel fled together with Aldhelm, but the pursuers followed them to the very end.
They spent days being worn down by enemies who attacked tirelessly, no matter how many times they crossed mountains and forded rivers.
And at last, on the edge of a surrounded hill, it ended with Aldhelm shielding Eibel and perishing together with the enemy.
As I followed the story and mapped out the terrain in my head, it was almost certain that the hill in question was the place where that ghost swordsman appeared.
I continued reading the book, wondering if anything more would come up, and before long arrived at the final sentence.
●
…
Aldhelm, do you know?
I never told you, but at that time, your child and mine was already in my womb.
Now, already, that day has become a story from more than fifty years ago.
Sometimes, I would bring our children and grandchildren to that land where I sent you away.
I do not know whether you saw them.
The kingdom is gone, but now there is a village where our children can live in peace.
It was hard at first, but when I looked at the child and thought of you, I could not help but find strength.
Though if I had my wish, I would have wanted to live here with you.
Come to think of it, these days my body has grown heavy, so I have not been able to visit often.
But please do not be too angry with me for that.
The day when I will meet you again is drawing near now.
As we promised then, I look forward to reuniting with you in the promised land.
●
I closed the book.
There were still two more new books left, but I did not take them out.
Because there was no longer any need to read them.
I felt like I knew what I had to do.