Episode 148
"F, Frey."
Young Irina, who had been sitting in the lobby with a dazed expression, spots Frey and rises from her seat with a pale face.
"What's wrong? Irina?"
When Frey asks her with a calm expression, she begins to speak, at a loss for what to do.
"Th, that werewolf that was chasing us back then... you see..."
"Yeah, what about it?"
"...Really, you don't know?"
Frey, listening to her story, answers with a nonchalant voice.
"What have you been talking about since earlier? It was just a ferocious werewolf that happened to wander into the mountain by coincidence. The werewolf is dead, and we're safe, so that's the end of it..."
"Frey."
But Irina, interrupting Frey's words, spoke with a trembling voice.
"I... actually saw it back then."
"Saw what?"
"...The werewolf, having returned to half its true form."
Frey, who momentarily frowned at those words, soon tilted his head with a puzzled expression.
"I don't quite understand what you're saying."
"And... you too, kneeling blankly in front of that werewolf."
"What in the world are you..."
"I was pretending to be unconscious back then."
Until Irina confessed thus with a face pale with fear.
"Since things had come to that, I was pretending to faint to get more compensation..."
"...Ah."
"So, I saw everything. I heard everything. That werewolf... was, was actually. Actually..."
Irina, having said that much.
"...Ugh."
When Frey finally failed to manage his expression, she sat down on the spot with a terrified face.
"Irina."
Frey, looking at her.
"That was just a werewolf."
"What?"
"We were just playing there and met a werewolf... no, a wolf. That's all."
"You're... you're telling me that now..."
"I was the one who got lost there, and I was the one who beat the wolf to death. I did it all."
"...Ugh."
"There's nothing for you to feel guilty about when you were trying to protect me."
Saying that with a trembling voice, he picked up a scroll.
*Shrrrk!!*
"Understand?"
In front of Irina who was trying to say something, he tore the scroll once more.
"...Mmm."
And after a while.
"What is it, Frey? When did you come out?"
Irina, rubbing her eyes, opened her mouth while watching Frey standing in front of her.
"...Just now."
"Really? Is that so. Hmm, uh..."
When Frey answered with a calm expression, she trailed off.
"You, you look like you have no energy... want to go eat some fish?"
She finally asked, blushing slightly.
"Sorry, I'm a bit busy right now."
"Huh? Oh... okay..."
Frey, answering her nonchalantly once more.
"Let's go."
He said in a low voice to Irina who was blankly staring at her younger self beside him.
"Klana and Perloche are in the reception room."
"......."
"Magician-nim?"
"Y, yes."
Only after hearing Frey's voice did Irina come to her senses and began following Frey who was slowly walking, but.
"She looks too much like me..."
".....!"
Haring her younger self muttering in a cold voice from behind, she couldn't help but stop walking.
"No, that can't be."
'...The words that follow next.'
Because the memories of the 1st round, now faded, specifically from her childhood, suddenly came to mind.
""There's no way my chest could be that big.""
Irina, whispering according to that memory, began to open her eyes wide when her younger self behind her said the exact same words.
"...What in the world?"
It was from that point that Irina began to feel something was strange.
"Magician-nim, hurry!"
"...Oh, yes."
But without time to properly digest that strangeness, Irina was led by Frey's hand to the reception room.
"Frey, what's wrong? Your expression looks very bad."
"You! Get a hold of yourself! Right now in front of you are the Imperial Princess and the Saintess!"
"...I apologize."
Frey, entering the reception room with Irina, bowed his head and apologized to Klana and Perloche who had arrived earlier and were waiting for him.
"Are you sure you're okay...?"
"W, what is it? Are you really sick somewhere?"
Though they hadn't yet heard the news of Frey's mother's passing, seeing Frey's sorrowful appearance as he bowed his head, they began to show worried expressions.
"I have a story to tell both of you."
"Yes? What do you..."
To them, Frey was about to start speaking while biting his lip.
"W, wait a moment."
At that moment, Perloche stood up from her seat with a troubled expression.
"I... need to go to the bathroom."
"...Ah, yes."
When Frey, looking at her blankly, nodded with difficulty, Perloche quickly kicked off from her seat and disappeared.
"........."
Thus, a deep silence began to flow between Frey and Klana who remained in the reception room, and Irina standing in the corner of the room.
"Princess, do you remember?"
"Of what?"
"The oath we made in the forest last time."
When Frey broke the silence and asked, Klana answered with a bright smile.
"Of course. I serve you, and you make me Emperor."
"...You do remember."
"Hem, hem, speaking of that..."
Klana, examining Frey's serious expression, suddenly cleared her throat and began to speak in a low voice.
"According to the oath, I must somehow become Emperor... but I have to serve you, right?"
"Yes."
"Even if an Emperor in a position above all others is the first son of a ducal family, serving an individual is quite problematic, you see."
Klana, saying that with a troubled expression, continued while slowly averting her gaze.
"So I thought about it carefully... and there was exactly one method."
"Princess."
"T, to welcome you... as my husband..."
"Sigh..."
When Frey let out a deep sigh at those words, Klana flinched slightly and continued while sweating profusely.
"D, don't misunderstand. You and I are friends to the end. This is just a method I came up with to not break the oath. If you don't like it... w, we can always find another way..."
"Klana."
"...Hue?"
Frey, cutting off Klana's story as she was even stuttering and rambling, by calling her name.
"I'm... sorry."
Making a painful expression, then burying his head in the table, he began to speak.
"I shouldn't have made that oath back then... no, I shouldn't have gone to your tea party in the first place..."
"F, Frey?"
"If I had known things would turn out like this, I wouldn't have created any connection at all... I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."
Klana, listening with an expression indicating she couldn't understand Frey's words, was about to say something.
"What do you mean by that right now..."
"The Magician-nim said so. This memory erasure magic cleanly changes memories one wants to forget... but for memories one doesn't want to forget, some form of the original somehow remains."
Frey just continued speaking with a trembling voice.
"Even if I use this scroll, the connections will continue to remain. If we had become strangers instead, both you and I would have been much more at ease..."
"Frey...?"
Though she couldn't understand what Frey was saying, Klana, who could fully feel the extent of his sorrow.
"I don't know what's going on, but I'll help you. If I, your friend, am with you... we can somehow resolve..."
She said that and cautiously reached out to Frey who had his head bowed.
"Still, it's better than not using it."
At that moment, Frey tore the scroll he was holding in half.
*Shaaaa...*
"F, Frey. What is this? What did you do to me... ah..."
Klana's voice, wrapped in various colors, faded and was completely cut off, and Frey, who had been lying face down on the table until then.
"...Magician noona."
Called out to Irina in the corner with a low voice.
"Please take care of Perloche."
"H, huh?"
"Not just Perloche... but everyone else too."
With an extremely painful expression.
"I tried to say goodbye to everyone before adjusting my memories, but I can't do it."
"Ah..."
"I'm truly sorry to Perloche, my sibling, and everyone else... but if I adjust my memories any further directly, I feel like I'll give up midway."
Frey, speaking in a painful voice while clutching his head, made a request to Irina who had turned pale.
"I won't ask for anything else. Just... tell them I loved them, that I'm sorry, and that we'll meet again."
"........."
"Then, I ask you..."
Frey, saying that and bowing his head.
"...Please exclude Serena's scroll."
"What?"
"Only that... I have to do myself."
Adding those words, he stood up unsteadily.
"Frey..."
Irina, who had been watching Frey leave the reception room with heavy steps with regretful eyes.
"This... this is too unfair."
Looking out the window.
"Why did you push everything onto Frey? Why? While the Demon God is raging this madly, what exactly are you doing?"
She muttered with an expression of hatred.
"Why make him suffer such a tragedy..."
She eventually stopped speaking and began to laugh bitterly.
"Haha... hahaha..."
Because cruelly, the sun had already hidden beyond the horizon.
"E, excuse me!"
"...Ah."
Irina, clenching her fists while trembling and biting her lip until it bled.
"Where did Frey go?"
When young Perloche, who had returned from the bathroom at some point, poked her back and asked.
"Frey asked me to pass this on..."
"Yes?"
"That he loved you, and that he's sorry."
Holding the scroll Frey had given her with both hands.
"And..."
Closing her eyes gently.
""...That we'll meet again.""
She tore the scroll in half.
".......Huh?"
No, she tried to tear it.
"Coo coo!!"
Until a white pigeon, seen somewhere before, flew in and snatched her scroll away.
.
"...Phew."
The night of the day Irina infiltrated Frey's trial.
"Today was another fulfilling day!"
Perloche Astellade was sitting in the chair at her desk in her dormitory, stretching.
"Then, for today's diary..."
She finished stretching and picked up her quill with a bright smile as always, but.
"Coo coo... coo..."
"Hm?"
Her pet pigeon flew in through the dormitory window, and she opened her eyes wide.
"Coo coo! Where have you been..."
She crossed her arms and was about to scold the pigeon with a stern expression, but.
"...Heok!"
Seeing the pigeon's body was in tatters, she stood up in surprise.
"What happened!!"
'...Finally, the time has come.'
And from that point, her expression began to change.
*Shaaaa...*
"Coo coo! Who hit you! Did that violent owl do this?"
'I've finally arrived at the destination I desperately wanted to reach by repeating countless times, and repeating again.'
She was infusing divine power into the pigeon while thinking completely different thoughts from what she was saying.
"It can't be helped! Come inside! The wounds are serious!"
'Did you remember? Did you remember? You remembered, right?'
Pushing the pigeon, now a white mass, into her heart with one hand.
With the other hand, she urgently unrolled the magic scroll she had received from a scroll merchant not long ago, placed on her desk, and began to mutter.
"I remembered. I remembered completely. I can recreate it without a single particle out of place."
Perloche, who began to pour out her sincerity with words that were neither unconscious nor thought.
"It's the first and last chance. If I fail, there's no next. Everything ends."
She continued muttering with a bloodless face.
"I must satisfy the conditions of five realizations. Can I do it? Can I really do..."
*Kugugugugu...*
"...Ha."
Suddenly, when the sky began to shake, she sneered.
"So you've finally noticed? Demon God? Well, I did speak quite loudly."
*Kugugung!*
"But it's useless to be angry, because that anger will become as if it never happened."
*Kugugugung!!*
"Because I'll flee into the trial you deceived as a fictional world, that is... into the past."
Perloche, finishing those words.
"Now, I'll depart."
Shedding a single tear from her eyes.
"To the one and only path that will give you a happy ending."
She whispered in a low voice.
"...Retry."
And, the world turned upside down.
.
"Good job, Coo coo."
Perloche gently strokes the pigeon that brought back the scroll Irina was trying to tear.
"W, what!?"
Irina looks at such Perloche with a dumbfounded expression.
"Irina-ssi."
But Perloche, unconcerned by that reaction.
"Do you know?"
"What?"
She said with a cold expression.
"...That the dazzlingly shining sun is also just one of the countless stars floating in the sky."
Taking out the magic scroll from the scroll merchant, recreated without a single particle out of place, from her bosom and handing it to her.