Episode 147
"Um, excuse me... Who are you and why are you here..."
A quite young-looking Frey asks with a timid expression.
"Uh, well that's... I mean..."
Irina, who had been stumbling over her words, not knowing how to answer Frey.
"By any chance... Are you that wizard my father mentioned?"
"What?"
Hearing young Frey's question, she began to tilt her head in confusion.
"W-well, I am a wizard..."
Irina, who had been watching Frey's reaction for a moment, tried to cautiously agree, but.
"...Huh?"
Soon, her eyes went round as she began to look around her.
"What is this?"
It was because suddenly, everything around her had stopped.
Small birds flying outside the window, candles burning away, clock hands moving with regular sounds, and even Frey who had been trembling.
In a mysterious atmosphere as if time had stopped, Irina wore a bewildered expression and cautiously took a step.
[System Error! Identification code c01]
"...Ahh!"
And at that moment, something translucent appeared before her eyes.
[An unknown error has occurred during the trial.]
[Searching for problem...]
[Conclusion: The subject of the trial has been changed during the trial.]
[Finding solution...]
"This is?"
Irina, reading the system window that appeared before her eyes with half-closed eyes.
"...No way."
Soon, she began to mutter with an astounded expression.
"Even the trial caused by the curse is being controlled by the system?"
Irina, who had consumed thousands of scrolls and gone through countless trial and error, had realized that an unknown power was working within Frey, making infiltration impossible.
So, she came up with one scheme.
It was a trick using the 'Soul Swap' she had devised.
That was the one that had once saved Frey's life.
"Is, is it now? Ms. Irina?"
Irina, who had extracted all the dark magic power from Kania's body instead, who could no longer use body-swapping magic thanks to the deal she made with the system last time.
"Yes, now is the time!"
She activated the soul-swapping magic she had created with the ambition to screw over the system.
- Shaaaaaaaa...!
Just before her body could swap with Frey's.
"I really... don't know if this will work."
Irina's operation based on her characteristic thinking of 'Then I'll just take out the soul and infiltrate,' after discovering that the unknown power blocking infiltration into the unconscious was working at the soul stage.
[Solution search failed.]
In the end, she ended up giving the system another taste of medicine.
[Re-search in progress...]
"Demon God."
Irina, who had been watching the system busily displaying windows before her eyes thanks to that situation.
"Stop pretending to be a system."
She whispered in a cold voice.
"I already heard about your true identity from Kania."
Then, the system windows that had been continuously appearing before her disappeared all at once.
[Emergency Quest Generated!]
[Quest Content: Do not proceed with the trial until this system finds a solution. (If you proceed with the trial arbitrarily, unexpected errors may occur.)]
- Reward: Negotiation later
[Do you accept? Y/N]
And after seeing the quest window that floated before her, which was somehow written even more crookedly than usual.
"...Damn it."
She answered with her eyes gently closed.
"How much I wanted to take his trial in his place, but that's not happening."
And the next moment.
Time around her returned.
Birds chirped, candles burned, clock hands began making regular sounds again, and.
"Oh, you've come... Wizard."
Young Frey looked at Irina and spoke again.
"I've been waiting."
"...Uh, um. Right."
Irina, who quickly erased the cold expression she had been wearing while looking at the system, asked a question while looking at Frey who had a determined expression.
"Um, by any chance, why a wizard..."
"There's no time for this. We have to go quickly."
But Frey interrupted Irina's words, grabbed her arm, and left the room.
"O, oppa? Who is that woman..."
Passing by Aria, Frey's younger sister with full cheeks, who revealed herself as soon as they came out of the room.
"Young master? Who is that person..."
Frey, who had been walking somewhere, passing by the maid who was approaching him with a worried expression.
"Father."
Finally, he knocked on the door where his father was and spoke.
"The wizard has come."
- Creak...
Then, the antique-looking door began to slowly open.
"...Professor Comern, have you arrived."
As Irina carefully entered the room with Frey, Abraham, Frey's father who had been smoking a cigar with a fierce look while gazing out the window, began to speak.
"That you would come to visit a sinner who failed to protect his wife, whom you cherished as your most beloved disciple. I am truly ashamed."
".....?"
"However, because it is something only you, Professor... only you can do... I have called you despite my shame. I apologize for that..."
"Comern? No way..."
Irina, who had been listening to his words blankly, muttered with an expression of disbelief.
"...That damn old hag?"
It was because Abraham had uttered the abandoned name of the Empire's Magic Tower Lord.
The one who was the strongest Archmage in history until she became an Archmage herself.
Irina's teacher with whom she had shared both hate and affection.
"W-what? Who are you?"
Abraham, who finally discovered Irina who had been flustered thanks to that, asked with an equally flustered expression.
"By any chance, are you Professor Comern?"
"Uh, well..."
"Did you really develop a rejuvenation magic?"
"Hmm..."
Irina, who didn't know what to do not knowing how to respond to the unexpected situation.
"No, that's not what's important right now."
"Uh, um..."
Watching Abraham snap back to his senses and start rummaging through his drawer, she carefully spoke up.
"What exactly... is this situation?"
"Pardon?"
Then, Abraham opened his mouth with a puzzled expression.
"The fact that you're here means you've finally found a way to complete these scrolls, doesn't it?"
Abraham, who took out scrolls from the drawer and spread them on the desk, began to speak with a desperate expression.
"It's truly fortunate that you found a solution before that poor child reaches his limit."
"This is..."
"Even I am suffering so terribly I'm smoking forbidden drugs... That child is enduring everything with a clear mind. Now, even that has reached its limit."
As he said this, young Frey whom Abraham pointed to indeed seemed to have reached his limit.
There were various wound marks on his arms, tear tracks on his face had dried, and on his face lay a deep darkness unimaginable for a child of that age.
"Please. Make the hell that child will walk through, even a little more comfortable."
Irina, who had been looking at such Frey, hearing Abraham's words whose face also had deep darkness no less than Frey's, began to examine the scrolls arranged on the desk.
"...This is?"
Irina's eyebrows twitched.
From the scrolls that Abraham in the trial had taken out on the desk, quite familiar magic formulas were visible.
From long ago, the unfinished formulas that her teacher had been calculating while racking her brain.
The incomplete formulas that she never managed to complete until she lost her life to the second-in-command of the Demon King's army.
- Shuuuu...
The moment she saw that formula, Irina moved her hand to the scroll without realizing it.
"Ah, I think I understand."
It was because the incomplete formulas containing her teacher's lifelong regret fascinated Irina enough to make her forget her current situation.
"...Wait."
She, who had been demonstrating her innate academic passion and thirst for knowledge to lead the incomplete scroll to completion.
"What is this?"
While reviewing the formula that had reached just before completion, she froze.
'These formulas are...?'
It was because most of the formulas she had been filling in as if possessed were completely new formulas she had discovered while going through trial and error to enter Frey's unconscious.
".....This doesn't make sense."
"Is, is there some problem?"
Irina, who had been frozen feeling goosebumps from such artificial and bizarre phenomena, came to her senses only after hearing Abraham's flustered voice.
"This... will work?"
She carefully wrote the last formula into the nearly complete formula.
"It, it seems to be done...?"
She said in a timid voice, lifting up the scroll that was presumably completed.
"Sh, shall we... try pouring mana into it?"
"Huh? Ah... But I am..."
Then, Irina, who was about to answer that she was out of mana to Abraham's suggestion.
"...Huh?"
She began to wear a flustered expression after discovering the mana flowing within her body.
"Why is mana overflowing?"
She was momentarily confused after detecting mana at exactly the same level as her prime, not just similar.
- Shaaaa...
Soon, she poured mana into the scroll as if enchanted.
- Bzzzt! Bzzzt!
Then the scroll emitted a brilliant light, announcing to all directions that it was complete.
"Finally..."
Frey, who saw that sight, picked up the scroll with a faint smile on his face that had been covered in deep darkness.
"Father, I'll be back."
"......Yes."
After bowing to Abraham, who couldn't bear to look at Frey and kept his head down, he stepped out of the room with hollow eyes.
"...Would you follow him?"
"F, follow him?"
Irina, who had been watching that sight with anxious eyes, was startled and asked back when Abraham, who was still keeping his head down, spoke to her.
"Because you need to help my son use the scroll."
"Ah..."
"And."
Abraham, who was answering Irina in a low voice.
"I don't have the qualification to follow."
He finished speaking in a dark voice.
"...Because I'm a useless father who can't even be of help."
Thick cigarette smoke was rising from his mouth.
.
- Knock knock knock
Frey, who had been walking down the hallway clutching a scroll tightly in one hand, started knocking on the door at the end of the hallway.
"Um, I'm coming in for a moment."
Frey, who said that in a calm voice, carefully opened the door.
"Mmm..."
Then a girl who had been crouching in the dark room flinched at the light entering the room and raised her head.
"...Ah."
The girl, who was frowning at the bright light and looking at the person who had opened the door and entered.
"Aah."
After confirming it was Frey, she began to tremble.
"I, I'm sorry..."
"...Mmm."
"I, I will take responsibility. You can hit me, lock me up, and k... kill me if you want..."
Soon, she who had been speaking haltingly to Frey who had also started trembling.
"...Please, please spare my younger sibling."
After finishing those words, she knelt before Frey.
".....Ugh."
Frey, who momentarily made all kinds of expressions seeing that sight and ground his teeth without realizing it.
"Hoo."
Took a slow deep breath, then approached Kania who was kneeling before him.
"...Heup."
Then the girl tightly closed her eyes as if sensing her own future.
"Father didn't bring you here to punish you."
Frey, who had approached right in front of her, began to speak in a trembling voice while lifting the scroll.
"Nor do I intend to punish you. Of course, your sibling neither."
"Really...?"
"The sins were committed by your parents. Holding you accountable for those sins doesn't make sense."
Frey, who said that while biting his lip hard.
"...Ugh?"
Carefully embraced the girl who was before him.
"Was your name... Kania?"
"Y, yes..."
"Right, Kania. There's something I need to tell you."
Soon, Frey began to speak in an even more trembling voice to Kania who didn't know what to do.
"I'm sorry."
"Pardon?"
"Although you and your sibling have no sin... if things continue like this, I think I'll come to hate you."
Feeling Kania's body slowly stiffening at those words.
"There's a lot I have to do going forward, and if I have even a little bit of those feelings... it'll be a big problem."
"W, what do you mean..."
"So, I need to erase it."
Frey, who took the scroll Irina had completed in both hands.
"I'm truly sorry, Kania."
"Um..."
Soon, he tore the scroll forcefully in half.
- Fzzzzzt...
"...Let's meet again when everything is over."
After whispering that to Kania who was surrounded by colorful colors popping out from the scroll, Frey held her tightly.
"W, what is this?"
A moment later, when she frowned and said that, he swallowed hard.
"What, what are you doing?"
Frey, who had been staring blankly at Kania who was pushing him away and frowning at him.
"Let's go."
To Irina, who had been blankly watching that scene until then.
"Next is your turn, my friend Irina."
"What?"
He said in a low voice.
"Because that clever girl figured out the werewolf's identity."
".......Ah."
Irina's eyes began to tremble.