While Cassian was rolling around outside, I was lying in bed, idly rolling about as I read a book.
Together with Rutina, who was likewise rolling around on the bed.
It wasn’t as if I had anything to investigate like last time, nor anything I had to go around asking about. There simply wasn’t anything in particular to do.
Over the course of my life, I had read nearly a million books, but it was still only a million.
Back when I attended the Imperial University, its library alone boasted a collection of over a hundred million volumes.
I didn’t know whether I would actually be able to die, but it was enough to make me wonder if I could read that many before I did.
“Uuugh…”
Meanwhile, Illiana was sitting at the round table furnished in the room, studying.
She had reached the point where she almost never made spelling mistakes anymore, so lately I had mostly been having her study arithmetic.
Even if she didn’t use magic circles, she still needed to establish a theoretical foundation.
For now, she was only using basic magic, so it might be fine, but later on, there was nothing as inefficient as using magic without understanding it.
“…”
I glanced over at Illiana to see how she was doing. She was holding her pen, but there was no strength at all in the hand gripping it.
Seeing that her eyes were out of focus as well, it was obvious at a glance that her mind was elsewhere and she was spacing out.
“Illiana?”
“Y-Yes!?”
Illiana flinched violently at my call, looked at me for a moment, then began pretending to study with exaggerated movements.
But seeing that her hand wasn’t moving at all, it seemed her eyes simply weren’t going to the problems.
Since she usually concentrated properly, it was a rare sight.
“Can’t focus?”
“N-No…”
“You can take a short break and continue later.”
I sat up and perched on the edge of the bed, then patted the spot beside me as I spoke.
Illiana hesitated, looking back and forth between the problems and me for a while, then slowly rose from her chair and sat beside me.
I gently laid Illiana down on the bed and stroked her from her head down to her back.
Illiana half-closed her eyes as if reassured by my touch and relaxed, but even so, I could see that half her mind was still occupied with something else.
And that something was probably this.
“Are you worried about Cassian?”
At my question, Illiana quickly lifted herself slightly and shook her head hard.
“N-No, I’m not…!”
Illiana denied it as if it was absolutely not the case, but if I had to name the difference between today and any other day, that was the only thing that came to mind.
Even as empty flattery, it would be hard to say they got along well, but still, a child who had always gone around with her had gone outside without any protection.
It wasn’t strange for her to wonder what she would do if something went wrong.
“Well, it’s only natural to worry. Still, there’s no need to.”
People said that mages had frail bodies and often lost their lives to a single unexpected attack.
“I didn’t raise him to be that weak.”
However, Cassian’s body, which I had been modifying over and over since he was young, was practically that of a warrior.
There was a reason his main method of attack was still beating people with his staff rather than using magic.
As such, his durability was on an entirely different level from ordinary humans or mages, so it would be difficult for him to suffer a fatal injury unless things were truly exceptional.
“He’ll probably be back within the day.”
At my words, Illiana slowly nodded and lay back down on the bed.
It meant she wanted me to stroke her again.
I indulged Illiana’s childishness and passed the time leisurely.
As a result, since she couldn’t concentrate at all, we ended up calling off studying for the day.
◇
Just as I expected, by the time the sunset began to glow, Cassian and the other three returned from beyond the forest.
Looking down through the window at Cassian entering the inn, his expression seemed brighter than I had expected.
On top of that, as if nothing particularly dangerous had happened, he was fine aside from a few scratches.
It was just about time for dinner, so I went down to the first floor with Illiana, partly to welcome Cassian back.
“Ah, Master!”
The last conversation we had yesterday had definitely been an argument, yet Cassian greeted me in a bright voice as if he didn’t remember any of that.
Meanwhile, Illiana had been worried about Cassian until just a little while ago, but now that he had actually returned, she was glaring at him with dissatisfied eyes.
As expected, children’s hearts were things I both seemed to understand and didn’t.
After finishing a simple dinner, Cassian said he had something to say, so we went together to my room.
Then Rutina, who had been rolling around on the bed, sprang up like a startled cat and slipped under the bed with movements as fluid as liquid.
Cassian’s expression stiffened slightly for an instant, but since it was always like this, he soon relaxed his face again as if it was fine.
Once Illiana and I sat on the bed, Cassian pulled out a chair at the table, sat down, and opened his mouth.
“That witch… I still think it’d be better to subjugate her after all.”
“And?”
“I’m thinking of trying it together with those people…”
“Sure.”
In truth, I had expected as much.
My way of thinking was based almost entirely on utilitarianism, so it was only natural that it would be hard for a child to accept.
There was a reason beings that protected villages but took sacrifices in return had been treated as evil in fairy tales since ancient times.
“…You’re not angry?”
“Why would I be? It’s your choice.”
The choice was entirely Cassian’s, and thinking about what came afterward was Cassian’s responsibility.
“…You’re not going to ask why?”
“I assume you reached that conclusion with reasons of your own. Am I wrong?”
“…No.”
In a situation like this, asking him to present those reasons would be nothing more than declaring my intent to point out the flaws in them.
I had no intention of going out of my way to refute Cassian’s thoughts.
Even if those thoughts were wrong, that was originally how one’s thinking deepened—by being wrong.
“Then you’re going again tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Then here’s one piece of advice. Keep your mana sight active when you move around the forest.”
“Why mana sight?”
“Witches usually conceal their dwellings quite cleverly with magic. So they’re hard to recognize.”
Since almost all witches were true shut-ins, every last one of them was dead serious about hiding their residence.
At the most basic level, they would distort light. If she lived in the forest like this time, she had probably made it look as though the forest simply continued on.
Since that was fairly difficult, most would be easy to notice if you got close, but in a dark place, that alone made it almost impossible to identify from a distance.
One might say that since it was magic, couldn’t any mage see through it with mana sight, which almost any mage could use?
But witches weren’t fools either, so in many cases, they also added magical concealment through skillful mana manipulation.
“A mage at Draut’s level would probably have a hard time recognizing it, but at your current level, you should be able to see through it.”
Cassian simply didn’t feel it himself right now, but he had reached a higher realm than he thought.
It was just that whenever he trained, it was normal for me to beat him until the dust flew.
There was also the fact that I had avoided comparing him to other mages as much as possible so he wouldn’t grow arrogant.
“…But didn’t you say you were against subjugating the witch?”
“I also said I could help.”
Just because his thoughts differed from mine, I had no intention of telling a still-inexperienced child to do everything on his own.
That would just be petty spitefulness.
Besides, all I had done was teach him the technique. Putting it into action was Cassian’s job.
“…Thank you.”
“For what? Anyway, do your best starting tomorrow.”
◇
From the next day on, Cassian repeated the same routine: waking up early every dawn and going out to investigate with that three-person party.
Every morning when I woke, the person who had always been there was gone, so it felt somehow a little empty.
If anything, being alone with Illiana like this made it feel as though we had returned to the old days.
Around the tenth day, perhaps because they had gone deep inside to investigate, there was even a time when he didn’t return despite night falling.
Because of that, Illiana, who had only worried for the first two days before putting it out of her mind, became more uneasy than she had been on the first day despite not saying anything, so I had to soothe her.
And so, on the fifteenth day since the investigation began, before the dawn had even begun to brighten.
Illiana, who usually slept late every day, was now awake and dressed for going outside.
From a top made of tough leather to leather boots. It was the sort of outfit she wore when traveling.
As for why she was dressed like this at such an ungodly hour…
“…If it seems like it won’t work out, send mana into this talisman.”
“Yes.”
“Are you really sure you’ll be okay?”
“…Yes.”
It was something I hadn’t expected, but Illiana had stepped forward, saying she would go with them too.
“That’s how it is.”
“???”
“Since Illiana will be behind you, fight a little more carefully. Illiana isn’t as sturdy as you.”
“No, no, no, wait, wait! What exactly is going on here?”
“What else? I just told you.”
“…No, but why??”
Who knew how it had come to this?
I truly had no idea either.