I levitated the book I had finished reading and slid it back onto the shelf, thanked the village chief, and returned to the inn.
The village chief stared at me as if wondering what on earth had happened, after seeing me handle magic so naturally without a magic circle—or even so much as a short incantation—but I paid it little mind and left.
“Master, did you find out anything?”
“Yeah. I’ll finish this today.”
It had only been a month, but it had also been an entire month.
“Let’s wrap this up quickly and go.”
Thinking about how I’d been tied down here all this time because I couldn’t deal with a single ghost was, in a way, a little relieving.
Because now I could settle things for certain and leave.
When we arrived at the inn, I summarized for Cassian and Iliana what I had read in Eibel’s book.
Of course, I left out the parts that were still too early for the children to hear.
“So what are you going to do?”
“The same thing. I’m going to resolve the lingering attachment that’s keeping Aldhelm here.”
And that lingering attachment was written very clearly in Eibel’s book.
Eibel had managed to flee safely, leaving Aldhelm behind, but Aldhelm himself had likely met his end fighting there.
And when Eibel returned to that same place, all that remained was Aldhelm’s cold corpse, already dead.
Even if their bodies ended up buried in the same place, in the end, the promise they had made to meet again was never fulfilled in this world.
Judging by the timing, Aldhelm’s ghost awakened after Eibel died, so there was no way for him to know whether she had survived unharmed or died an untimely death.
That was probably the greatest reason Aldhelm was still bound to this world.
So, to let Aldhelm pass on, all I had to do was fulfill that promise. It was very simple.
“……Fulfill the promise? But, um, Princess Eibel died a long, long time ago.”
“She did.”
“……Pardon?”
Iliana tilted her head as if she had no idea what I was talking about.
But what did it matter if someone was dead?
“When a person dies, where do you think the soul goes?”
“Uh, doesn’t it go to heaven?”
“That’s just the nice-sounding thing the Church says.”
In truth, heaven itself did exist. It simply wasn’t the world people went to after death.
I took out a map of some region that had become useless and showed it to them.
“Here. Let’s say the top side of this map is the world we live in. This is the present world.”
This time, I flipped the map over and showed them the blank side.
“And this, the back side of the map. This place, called the world behind or the netherworld, is where dead souls remain.”
Explaining it with a two-dimensional thing like paper might have made it a little difficult to understand, but in other words, there was something like a world inside a mirror, and dead souls sank into it.
In that process, souls gradually lost consciousness and fell into a world akin to nothingness. That was what it meant to pass on.
If, while this process was incomplete, the soul awakened through some powerful thought—be it regret, resentment, or anything else—and appeared again in the present world, that was a ghost.
Next, I formed a small droplet of water on the map, then added a little more water with magic. Before long, the droplet could no longer bear its own weight and fell.
“A soul that remains there long enough and is purified falls downward like this, then reincarnates and is born into the world again.”
The dead remain as souls on the reverse side of the world, resting and being purified, before being born again as new living beings.
This was the cycle in which souls endlessly revolved in this world.
That was why, no matter how many mortals there were who knew how to handle souls, like black mages, resurrection was impossible.
How were those puny fools supposed to observe something like the world behind, let alone bring a soul back from there?
And once reincarnation occurred, resurrection became impossible even by a divine miracle.
“Mm…… But then isn’t that even worse? What if she’s already reincarnated?”
“She probably hasn’t.”
“You can know that?”
“Because no matter how short the time spent resting on that side is, it’s at least five hundred years in present-world time.”
Looking at the genealogy earlier, even if I didn’t know the exact year, it was certain that it hadn’t been more than three hundred years.
So Eibel’s soul was almost certainly somewhere on the other side nearby.
“……But then, that soul is in that world behind, isn’t it?”
“That’s why I have to call it here.”
“You can do something like that?”
“Of course I can.”
I knelt, closed my eyes, placed my palm against the floor, and focused my mind.
To be honest, interfering with the fundamental domain of the world like this carried quite a large penalty, so I wanted to avoid it if I could.
But if it was only calling over a soul for half a day at most, it was bearable.
Even so, I couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy at the thought that I would definitely have that nightmare tonight.
After I closed my eyes and took about three breaths in and out, I found the soul I had been looking for.
Its unique wavelength was identical to the mana wavelength that had come from the book I read earlier, so there was no doubt.
I caught the soul as if I were fishing and hooked it up into the present world.
“Huaaaah!!!”
I heard Cassian shriek in fright and tumble backward with a crash.
Judging by that reaction, it seemed I had succeeded.
―――[What in the world is……]
What I heard was the voice of a fairly old woman.
When I opened my eyes and looked up, sure enough, there was a ghost staring down at her own hands in utter bewilderment.
That she had appeared as an old woman was, in a way, only natural. A ghost’s appearance was most strongly affected by how they perceived themselves.
“Sorry for disturbing you while you were resting peacefully.”
When I spoke to her, she slowly turned her head toward me, then suddenly widened her eyes as she looked at me.
―――[You are…… I’m certain I have seen you somewhere……]
She did not seem to have fully come to her senses yet, but there was not that much time.
Even if she looked as though she had awakened again like this, once the sun fully set, she would sink back to the other side.
“We don’t have much time, so I’ll explain quickly. The truth is……”
◇
I headed toward Aldhelm once again.
As I went up and down the slope along the faint mountain path where I always faced him, at some point, the atmosphere changed completely, and he appeared.
“Aldhelm.”
I slowly called his name and approached him one step at a time.
As if he had never expected that name to come from my mouth, surprise showed plainly on his face.
―――[Strong one, what did you just……]
Aldhelm’s expression hardened in an instant, and he drew his sword and took his stance. It was the same stance as always.
Normally, I would have asked him something, Aldhelm would have shut his mouth, and in the end, it would have concluded with me firing mana at him.
That ended today.
“Princess Eibel.”
When I spoke again, Aldhelm lost his composure even more than before, his face filling with bewilderment.
―――[H-how do you know that name……!]
“I came to fulfill your promise.”
At my words, he took a slight step back, closed his eyes, took one deep breath, and returned to an expressionless face.
But he could not hide the fact that his eyes were trembling incomparably more than before.
―――[……I do not know how you found out, but do not insult her any further.]
“Well.”
That wasn’t something I wanted to hear from someone who didn’t even know that the princess had successfully fled far away as he wished, and had even borne his child.
From a human perspective, he was pitiable, but what stood before me right now was still nothing more than a nuisance.
When I shrugged and put on a slightly provocative expression, Aldhelm slowly took his first step forward, then rushed at me in an instant.
He closed the distance in literally the blink of an eye and swung his sword. Unlike usual, I did not parry it, but leaned my head back and dodged.
A puzzled glint appeared in Aldhelm’s eyes, but like an enraged lion, he unleashed a relentless chain of attacks at me.
However, not once did the tip of his blade so much as graze the hem of my clothes.
―――[What are you scheming?]
“I told you. Your lingering attachment. I said I’d fulfill your promise.”
―――[If you knew, you would not say such a thing.]
Unlike before, I could feel Aldhelm’s voice gradually growing colder.
If I put myself in his position, I could understand. A complete stranger he had only met barely ten times was saying he would grant an impossible wish.
At that moment, a voice rang out in my head.
―――〈Master, we’re here!〉
It was Cassian’s voice.
He had activated the message spell I had cast on him before we left.
The plan we had decided on was this.
First, just as I had for the past month, I would go find Aldhelm again and keep him occupied to an appropriate degree.
In the meantime, Cassian and Aelina would head to the top of the hill, the land of promise, together with Eibel’s ghost.
To the very place where they had promised to meet.
And once they arrived, I would lure Aldhelm over there and make the promise be fulfilled.
Then Aldhelm would pass on, Eibel would pass on with him, and we would have one matter resolved.
Conveniently, because of what I had said, Aldhelm was in the middle of being shaken. It was the right time.
I kicked off the ground and rushed at Aldhelm, then clasped my hands together, filled them with mana, and struck him hard.
In the direction where I could sense Cassian and Iliana’s location. Eibel’s ghost was probably there as well.
Aldhelm was sent flying in an instant, but as expected, he endured this much without issue.
―――[This much is nothing to me……!!]
“Hya!”
But I absolutely did not give Aldhelm any chance to recover his senses.
Before he could even fix his fallen posture, I drove him toward the top of the hill with my feet and fists, as if dribbling a soccer ball.
Then Aldhelm quickly realized where I was driving him.
―――[No, this direction is!]
But what could Aldhelm do about it?
Nothing. He could only be knocked about by me and sent flying far away.
As we drew near the summit, I put in a little more mana and sent Aldhelm flying up there in one blow.
Aldhelm shot out through the trees, and only after he arrived at the treeless summit did he fall to the ground and roll several times.
―――[Kugh, n-no! Anywhere but here……!!]
Aldhelm clutched his head, drove his sword into the ground, and stood up.
Then, preparing for my attack, he raised his head and looked around, but my attacks did not continue.
Instead, Aldhelm’s gaze was fixed on one place.
At the end of his line of sight, someone stood in the land of promise, where absolutely no one should have been.
That person wore a long coat with a hood, making it impossible to recognize them.
Before them stood a stone monument that came up to about their waist, and at the very top hung a pendant, rusted but still showing a faint gleam.
That person looked down at the monument, then bent and swept a hand over it.
At that sight, Aldhelm seemed to forget that he had been fighting me until just now. He turned the tip of his sword toward them and shouted.
―――[I cannot allow anyone into this place. Leave at once!!]
Hearing that, the intruder standing before the stone monument slowly removed the coat and turned around.
―――[You haven’t changed at all since then.]
As if he had not heard, Aldhelm raised his sword and tried to charge, but when she turned around, his feet came to an abrupt halt.
―――[W-who are you……? Why do I……]
―――[……I’m a little disappointed. I didn’t think you would fail to recognize me just because I aged a little.]
Aldhelm trembled as if even he himself could not understand why he could not attack.
Meanwhile, Eibel took one step at a time, slowly drawing closer to Aldhelm.
―――[Do you not remember? The day we first met. I hated having to do everything, and at the end of my escape, there you were.]
One step, then another.
Eibel’s hair gradually grew longer, and her wrinkled forehead slowly became smooth.
The tip of Aldhelm’s sword trembled more violently.
―――[Ah, looking around the marketplace was fun too. Father scolded me terribly afterward, though.]
One step, then another.
This time, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes slowly disappeared, and at some point, her clothes also began growing more splendid little by little.
The trembling tip of Aldhelm’s sword now pointed toward the ground.
―――[Or should I talk about that night? Do you still not remember me?]
―――[You are……]
The final step came to a stop.
At last, when Eibel stood before Aldhelm, her appearance was now the same as it had been when they exchanged their promise.
She took Aldhelm’s hand after he dropped his sword, then smiled and said,
―――[Aldhelm. I’m a little late, but I kept my promise, didn’t I?]
Only now did the two of them begin continuing the aftermath of that day, when they had embraced each other and said farewell before the enemies closing in on them.