I opened the underground door and stepped out.
No—I couldn’t take even a single step.
There was no foothold.
In an instant, my entire body plummeted, and there was no end to the fall. Was this what bungee jumping without a cord felt like? Or skydiving without a parachute?
────!
My fluttering collar. The resistance of the air crushing my whole body.
I feel the current with my eyes closed.
Quietly, I endure the weight of gravity.
──────.
The descent continues for a long while.
And just when I finally adapt to it.
Thud──!
I arrived.
My body, stretched out straight, had struck the ground.
“······.”
I lie still, managing the pain in my back and waist.
Whether it is my tailbone, my ribs, or both.
It is definitely a fracture, but the body of 「Iron Man」 soon begins to recover.
In the meantime, I look up at the sky.
Clear blue weather, and above it, the sentences of the status window shimmer.
「 The Darkness of the Imperial Palace · The Devil’s Mirror: 1st Cycle 」
◆ Quest Overview: Searching for the Devil’s Mirror within Sophien’s regression
The 1st Cycle.
In other words, Sophien’s first year, the cycle in which she has “not regressed even once.”
“······Hmm.”
This surrounding area seems to be the imperial palace garden, but not a single person is in sight.
An utterly empty world.
However, if I examine the ground around me closely······
Rustle— rustle—
Along with the sound of sweeping, the scattered fallen leaves are neatly arranged.
Click— click—
Also, the shrubs in the garden are being pruned. The cut branches float gently into the air and are placed into sacks.
The work people should be doing is happening on its own.
“······.”
I suddenly noticed a shard of glass fallen on the ground. I lifted the shard with 「Telekinesis」 and reflected the air.
······Indeed.
In my world, there had been no one.
—Retel. You done pruning over there?
But in this glass, in other words, the “world beyond the mirror,” many people exist.
All sounds, too, flow out from this glass.
—Done. His Majesty likes things neat, so if we make it like a square, that should do, right?
—Is that so? Isn’t it too square?
The imperial palace gardeners are discussing with one another as they tend to the garden.
In the next instant, one of them discovers my shard of glass.
—Huh? What’s that? There’s glass floating around over there?
He points in surprise at the glass moving with 「Telekinesis」, and I release the magic.
“······I see.”
I realized it easily.
The medium of this quest, 「The Devil’s Mirror」, was “this entire thing.”
In other words, I had entered 「the world inside the mirror」.
Therefore, from their perspective, I cannot be seen, and if I move something, they have no choice but to consider it the work of a ghost.
As I am now nothing more than an existence on the reverse side of the world—an “existence inside the mirror.”
“Then. The devil is inside here.”
That assumption alone feels as though a fireball has settled into my heart.
Haa······.
After exhaling the heat with a deep breath, I pass through the garden and walk toward the imperial palace.
Step— step—
No one blocks me. Without a mirror, no one in this 「 1st Cycle 」 can see me, and I cannot see them either.
The scenery of the imperial palace I enter on my own two feet is not very different from the future.
The marble tiles on the floor. The magic-stone lamps lined up along the walls. The golden lion, symbol of the imperial family, embroidered across the entire ceiling.
I slowly set out to find Sophien.
The most important figure in this quest is Sophien, and that fact should be the same not only for me, but for the devil as well.
“Is it here?”
Right now, Sophien should be not the emperor but “Her Highness,” and the successor’s room was not very far from the emperor’s private bedchamber.
It was a luxurious door set with all kinds of jewels like decorations.
Clack─
I opened it plainly. Then I went inside.
There was no one in the room.
No, no one was visible.
I looked at the full-length mirror placed on the right side of the spacious room.
Sophien was visible in the mirror.
—Who opened the door?
She asked coldly. The question was directed not at me, but at the guard knights. In any case, they seemed to have been guarding the door to Sophien’s room.
—We thought Your Highness had opened it.
—I did?
—Yes. We apologize. However, neither of us opened the door. How could we dare to do such a thing?
Eight-year-old Sophien furrowed her brow. She glared at the two guard knights, then closed the door. And as she turned around, she looked at the mirror on the right.
Inside it, I am there.
—······!
Sophien’s slender, sickly body stiffens on the spot. Without a word, she gulps down her saliva.
Her body trembling faintly, she barely manages to ask.
—······Who are you? An assassin?
I shook my head. The instant I did, Sophien shrieked.
—Guards!
She was calling the knights.
I withdrew for a moment into the blind spot of the mirror.
—Yes! We are here!
—There was an intruder here······?
—Where do you mean?!
I infer the situation from their voices.
—That mirror······.
—The mirror, Your Highness?
Not only the guard knights, but even Sophien’s eyes see no intruder, and Sophien is bewildered.
—······There was definitely someone in the mirror.
—We will destroy the mirror.
—What? ······No. Never mind. Leave.
—Yes. Understood.
The two knights went outside. Even then, Sophien stared blankly at the mirror.
I appeared before it again.
—······You.
This time, Sophien did not call the guards either. She simply asked calmly.
—Who are you?
“I am······”
—Where do you think!
Whip─! Before I could answer, Sophien snapped her head around. More precisely, she looked back toward the place where I was standing.
However, she could not see me, and looked back at the mirror again.
—What are you? Why are you only inside the mirror?
“······.”
—Damn it. Are you a hallucination produced by my headache?
“I am not a hallucination.”
I shook my head slightly. Sophien’s eyebrow twitched.
“But it is unfortunate. Like this, we will never be able to face each other.”
—Unfortunate? How dare the likes of you face me, cough. Cough. Cough!
Sophien coughed dryly. While she collected herself, I looked around the spacious room.
Every part of Her Highness’s private chamber was magnificent. Not a single thing was shabby.
Then suddenly, the view outside the window caught my eye.
There, all the spring in the world existed.
The “Imperial Palace Garden,” said to be the most famous magical space on the continent.
The four seasons coexist in the east, west, north, and south, but among them, in the southeastern garden, only spring is eternal.
Scattering pollen, radiant buds in bloom, butterflies and bees roaming about, sunlight settling down, and vivid colors making the entire garden flourish richly.
—······.
Sophien, who is closest to that garden so beautiful, has at some point stopped coughing and is looking at her own hand.
It is covered in blood.
She has coughed up blood.
—······Hngh.
Seeing her own impending death, Sophien’s eyes well with tears.
The Sophien of now is the Sophien of the 1st Cycle, a Sophien who has not regressed even once, so she does not even know that she will regress.
Therefore, she thinks this death will truly be her last.
“······It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I am a professor.”
—A professor?
“Yes.”
Sophien looks at me. After wiping away the tears at the corners of her eyes and the blood at the corners of her mouth.
—Do you mean a professor of a university or the Magic Tower?
To her······ I said without the slightest change in expression.
“Yes. A professor of the Magic Tower. From now on, let us have many conversations with each other.”
* * *
Meanwhile, Rohalak of the Yukline territory.
The Crimson Garnet Adventurer Group had stopped by Rohalak Prison Camp while they were at it. It was because of a request to obtain no less than 50ml of “Hallak scorpion” venom.
“The prison camp is incredibly large······.”
Lia muttered as she looked at the vast area of the prison camp.
Had it been that large in the original story too? She did not remember exactly.
“Right. The professor must have made up his mind because of ‘that terrorist incident,’ huh~?”
At Ganesha’s words, Lia closed her mouth.
Professor Deculein.
Lia, too, had heard of the majesty he had gained after growing without any restraint through numerous media outlets.
Still, it was at least fortunate that the prison camp had been built in Rohalak. Rohalak was not simply a hellish land.
It could be sufficiently cultivated, and rather······.
“Crimson Garnet Adventurer Group.”
At that moment, a cold voice flowed in.
“I finally get to see you?”
“Ah.”
Lia turned that way and flinched in surprise.
Yeriel. Deculein’s current younger sister, but siblings not related by blood.
A named character who, in the future, would be threatened by Deculein with that fact as leverage, and would eventually either kill Deculein or be killed by him.
She was glaring at them with the poutiest face in the world.
“Miss Yeriel?”
Ganesha’s eyes widened. Yeriel crossed her arms and asked back.
“Why aren’t you answering my messages? Did you make some kind of blacklist on your own or what?”
“Ah~ That, you see~ What it is~”
Ganesha pondered how to say it.
Of course, she could not say, We ignored you because you’re not Deculein’s real younger sister.
“······Huh?”
At that moment, Carlos let out a puzzled sound.
Now’s my chance! Ganesha hurriedly reacted to Carlos’s words.
“Why? What’s wrong, Carlos?”
“Just now, over there······.”
Carlos pointed at the sky. Not only the Crimson Garnet Adventurer Group, but even Yeriel and her vassals looked up there.
“There’s nothing there?”
“No!”
At Ganesha’s words, Carlos quickly retorted. He was an eleven-year-old who hated having his words denied.
“Some······ weird thing was flying around.”
“Didn’t you mistake a bird for something else?”
“It was too big to be a bird······.”
Carlos still looked up at the sky, and Yeriel once again snapped at Ganesha.
“Enough. I have something to say, so come to the lord’s castle, would you?”
“Ah, ahahaha. We’d like to as well, but we have a mission······.”
Ganesha smiled bitterly.
──Immediately after.
“······Hm? What is this?”
Ganesha’s eyes widened as she muttered.
As if she had become a different person.
“Leo? Lia? Los? What are you all doing here? Why am I here too?”
At Ganesha’s perplexing words, everyone tilted their heads. No, Yeriel narrowed her eyes again.
“Stop saying strange things. Hurry and follow me.”
“Huh? Ah, well······.”
“Hurry! I’ll pay you as much as you want!”
Yeriel and her vassals dragged the Crimson Garnet Adventurer Group away almost as though they were arresting them.
* * *
「 The Darkness of the Imperial Palace · The Devil’s Mirror: 1st Cycle 」
······The laws of this place, the “world inside the mirror,” are quite ordinary.
Fundamentally, the flow of time is the same as well.
Sophien beyond the mirror, and I inside the mirror.
We share the same time.
It is not that one of us is faster or slower.
That is why, today, the second day since I entered this underground.
—I am dying.
Sophien said. It was the sorrowful confession of a child only eight years old.
—It is an incurable disease. All the ministers know. Those bastards look at me with pity······ In the past, those damned eyes disgusted me.
Sophien’s gaze looked into my eyes in the mirror, and I did not avoid it. At that, Her Highness gave a small smile.
—Your eyes have none of that emotion, so they are not bad. ······However, these days, there are many things that irritate me more than that.
“What are they?”
—Every night, things like mosquitoes appear in my dreams······.
“Can you describe their appearance?”
Sophien let out a sigh.
—They look like bats. They fly around. But at other times, they look like flies, and at other times, they look like monsters. The fact that they fly does not change.
I nodded and answered.
“They are devils.”
—Devils?
“Yes.”
Devils that fly, but have no specific form.
I know this creature’s setting all too well. Both through Kim Woojin’s memories, and through Yukline’s bloodline instincts.
Devil— “néscĭus.”
A creature that flies like a ghost. Because it takes on “the form its target fears most,” it has no fixed outward appearance, making it difficult to deal with.
—Devils······.
I still do not know what their purpose is.
However, it is certain that this devil is related to the “Altar.” To begin with, this néscĭus is a devil directly summoned by the Altar in the story.
—Hmm, cough— cough—!
Sopien coughed. Blood stained her palm. Letting out a sigh, she continued speaking, her voice fraught with turmoil.
"How do you know of such things so well? Well, you are a professor…… Anyway. Last week, I selected my personal guard knight."
I looked at Sopien. At merely eight years old, she seemed more of an adult than the current Emperor Sopien.
"He's a fellow named Keiron…… Though I likely won't need him for long. I'm going to die soon. I might even die tomorrow."
Sopien extended her index finger and pointed at me. More precisely, she jabbed the mirror.
"This will likely be farewell to you as well, you strange, insolent professor clinging to this mirror. You strange one I can actually talk to. You whose gaze I fancy."
As she spoke, Sopien smiled. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
I shook my head.
"It is not."
"…What?"
"It is not a farewell."
"What?"
"I shall always be present throughout Your Majesty's process. And at the end of this process as well, I shall be there."
"…"
Sopien looked at me. Then she shook her head from side to side.
"I wish that were so, but it will not be. You are a figment of my mind created by my damned illness. Hahaha."
Sopien laughed.
Laughing, she coughed up blood.
Kkhueeeok—!
Painful groans filled the room, and the blood vomited by the child of merely eight covered the mirror.
Wuaaaang……
The final, childlike cry of a child who had acted like an adult.
—At that moment.
The entire world was dyed in darkness.
At least, to my eyes, nothing could be seen.
I saw a status window floating in the empty air.
「Round 1」
The number '1' flickered with a fzzt—.
Then it changed to a new number.
「Round 2」
Just now, Sopien had died.
"……Your Majesty."
The world had gone dark in an instant. The entirety of it slowly awakened alongside Sopien's regression.
As if a mirror were shattering, crrrrrack……
"We shall meet again."
Thud—!
The basement door closed.
* * *
"Dekyulrein."
Keiron's voice shook my mind. Opening my eyes wide, I quickly assessed the situation.
This place was now the Imperial Palace.
'The real Imperial Palace.'
I had been expelled immediately after Sopien's 1st Round ended.
"Keiron. How many days have passed?"
Having understood clearly, I asked again.
"Not even a day has passed. But listen to my words without misunderstanding them."
However, Keiron himself wore a rare expression of bewilderment. There was even a hint of confusion.
"I returned from the next day, that is, from tomorrow."
"…"
I looked at Keiron. Keiron himself wore an awkward expression.
"Do you mean regression?"
"……Ah! Yes. That word fits perfectly. I had been searching for how to describe this phenomenon, but that was the word. Yes. I have regressed. By a single day."
I silently fixed my eyes on the underground door of the Imperial Palace.
A humble wooden door.
Knock, knock—
I knocked and tried the doorknob.
There was no change whatsoever, and the door did not open.
It must mean it was not yet time for 「Round 2」 to begin.
"Dekyulrein. It may be hard to believe, but you must believe me. I regressed from tomorrow to today—"
"Yes. I believe you. It seems 'Nesius' has escaped from this basement."
"……Nesius?"
"It is a type of demon, though its appearance varies. Have you by any chance cut down an unidentified entity?"
At that, Keiron's eyes went wide.
"Yes. Tomorrow night—it is strange saying tomorrow night—but something leaped out from the corridor in this basement, so I cut it down."
I nodded.
"Then you are most likely correct. It was in the process of carrying 'regression.'"
"Carrying regression?"
"Yes. Just as bees gather nectar from flowers and deliver it to the hive."
Now I was beginning to faintly understand.
The true full story of this quest.
Why the demon tampered with Sopien's memories. Why the 'Altar' coveted Sopien's authority.
"Explain in detail."
Keiron asked. I looked at Keiron.
Keiron was, at least in this moment, the most reliable person.
"Because this is the most correct method to resurrect a god."
"A god?"
"Yes. They were searching for a 'body.' Then what remains must be the 'soul.'"
The Altar had undoubtedly commissioned Alros with a body.
Whether Alros made it or obtained it from someone else, once a physical body was acquired, what came next was the soul.
I spoke.
"In ordinary humans, body and soul are one. Therefore, if the soul regresses, the body returns to the past together with it. Like you, Keiron."
Tomorrow's Keiron had regressed to today. Because he is a 'living being' whose body and soul are identical.
Keiron asked back.
"If one is not ordinary?"
"If one is not an ordinary human, that is, if they are 'already dead,' body and soul cannot help but be separate. Therefore, if an artificially created physical body is fixed in the present, and only the soul is made to regress."
If Sophien's authority (regression) is gathered over tens, or hundreds, no, thousands of years and injected into some 'soul' that is already dead?
If the body is fixed in the present, and only the 'soul' is regressed to the time it was alive?
"He will undoubtedly be resurrected."
The most important part of the main quest.
That is how the 「Resurrection of the God」 is accomplished.
"……But why did I regress? Did Her Majesty's power leak outward?"
Hearing those words, it seemed Keiron had known about Sopien's regression as well.
"No. It is because you cut down the 'Nesius' of tomorrow night. The 'regression' it was carrying flowed into you. As I said, it is but a bee. You happened to be doused in some of the honey spilled by the dead bee."
"Aha."
Keiron opened his eyes round. Quite a cute reaction for a knight in his late thirties.
I looked at the wooden door of the basement.
"Keiron. From now on, matters are urgent. When this door opens again, contact me as soon as possible. Also, if you encounter a Nesius, simply continue cutting them down as you did now. For contact, use this."
I held out a 「Message Scroll」 to him.
"I shall do so."
Keiron nodded with a determined face.