······Within vanished time, in a faint space.
A metallic glint flashed in the dim distance.
“Professor!”
Yulie ran to him. Though her own body was covered in wounds, there was no hesitation in her.
He was leaning against a wall. True to himself, he had not lain down or collapsed; he stood firm.
“Your wounds are deep!”
Blood surged from all over his body.
As a knight, Yulie’s body and mind moved by instinct. Checking the wounds, controlling the bleeding, administering emergency treatment—habits trained into her for twenty years.
“You’re calm, Yulie.”
“Do not speak.”
Her heart was pounding, but there was no time to be overcome with emotion.
Just as she was about to grasp the injuries precisely and begin with magical healing—
Clench─!
Deculein seized her hand. Yulie looked up at him in confusion.
He was smiling.
“······It’s all right.”
“It is not! It is absolutely not all right!”
“If it is not all right······.”
He placed his hand on Yulie’s cheek. She flinched.
“Am I dying?”
“······.”
Yulie examined his wounds in detail. The abdominal cavity, the ilium, the centerline—every most fatal vital point had been pierced through.
She clenched her teeth.
“······You are dying.”
That trembling voice, to Deculein, suddenly brought back a memory from when he had once been Kim Woojin.
Quite long ago. The image of her on the monitor cutting off Deculein’s breath, and the dying Deculein’s last words.
‘Damn bitch—’
“Even an 「Iron Man」 can die, it seems······. Yulie. I have seen a situation in which I die.”
“Stop, please stop speaking!”
Yulie wanted to cover his mouth. The more he spoke, the more blood welled up, but Deculein stubbornly continued.
“How strange. Perhaps that future would be the most beneficial future for you.”
“Professor, please······.”
“I know as well, Yulie. This must not be the end.”
If he died like this, Yulie, too, would be unable to save her true self.
If Deculein were to die, it had to be by Yulie’s hand.
“For your sake, and for mine.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder. Then he spoke in an exceedingly clear voice.
“If you kill the being you fear most, we will be able to meet again.”
“······Professor.”
“Keep it in mind. If you kill the being you fear most, we will be able to meet again.”
“What does that······.”
“······.”
Deculein’s words did not continue beyond that. He merely closed his eyes in silence.
“Professor! Professor──!”
Not for a single moment had he bent his body; he had only been broken in an instant······.
* * *
······Having returned to the present, Yulie looked back and forth between Sophien and Deculein.
“Yulie. Unless you have suddenly lost your mind.”
Sophien spoke. With her arms crossed, she tapped her upper arm with her fingers.
“Are you saying you regressed?”
“Yes. It was exactly one week from today.”
Yulie nodded calmly.
Her judgment, organization, and comprehension of the situation were remarkably quick. Perhaps it was because the memory was far too vivid to dismiss what had just happened as a dream.
“How curious. What were the circumstances before Deculein died?”
“There was a report that a demon had appeared in the underground of the Imperial Palace.”
Yulie turned her head for a moment and coughed. Cough—! Cough—!
“So we, together, went to the Imperial Palace······.”
Blood flowed from the corner of her mouth. Yulie wiped it away as if nothing had happened and continued.
“The Professor entrusted me with the entrance to the underground. The Professor alone went underground—”
“And I died there?”
“······Yes.”
Each word seemed difficult for Yulie. Cold sweat had already beaded across her forehead.
“Also······ haah.”
Perhaps her mind was dizzy; she shook her head once.
Gripping the desk tightly, she said,
“At that time, Your Majesty was asleep. Your retainers made efforts, but you would not rise from bed.”
“······Is that so?”
Sophien furrowed her brow. I thought as I listened to her words.
“Yes. Cough—!”
Yulie coughed. A clot of blood flew from her mouth. In an instant, the blood she vomited stained the snow red, and thud! Her entire body fell upon it.
She had lost consciousness.
I knelt on one knee and lifted Yulie into my arms.
“What is happening?”
Sophien asked. I felt the raging high fever throughout Yulie’s body. Closing my eyes, I 「Understood」 her injuries.
“······Her injuries are severe. It is a side effect of regression. Yulie is dying.”
Regression is the process of returning from the future to the past. Therefore, the mana throughout the body surges violently at least once.
Of course, if the body is strong and the circuits sturdy, one will adapt quickly, but Yulie’s body and circuits are not. It is because of the curse clinging to her heart.
With such a body, Yulie regressed not for a day or two, but an entire week.
It was the price for reviving the future me.
“Deculein. Your face right now is extraordinary.”
Hooh~ Sophien said with a small laugh.
“It is a face you have never shown even once. Do you love her that much?”
Without a word, I checked Yulie’s consciousness and pulse. She was faintly awake.
“······No.”
Therefore, my words would remain in her memory like a flickering haze.
“Not once have I loved her that much. I merely wish to possess her. However, these days she is especially prone to minor illnesses, so it is quite troublesome.”
“······.”
The corners of Sophien’s mouth twisted cynically as she looked at me.
Soon, the Imperial Palace’s exclusive physicians arrived. They placed Yulie on a stretcher, and I watched her recede into the distance.
Sophien said,
“Deculein.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I become skilled at and accustomed to everything—truly everything—with ease. When I first met you, it was difficult to grasp your emotions. Yet even that is easy now.”
“Is that so?”
“Deculein, you lied to me.”
Sophien spoke sternly. I did not deny it.
“I am greatly disappointed. Enough that I would like to behead you this instant.”
“······I beg your pardon. However, I likely do not love Yulie ‘as much as Your Majesty thinks.’”
Just as Yulie is completed through Deculein, Deculein, too, is completed by Yulie.
I cannot defy that predetermined story.
“It is likely far beyond that.”
It is not that I cannot because I am unable to; I cannot because I do not wish to.
Deculein’s unique ego. His most solid nature and stubbornness desire Yulie.
“······Hmph. Enough.”
As if she understood the meaning of my words, Sophien sneered. Then, suddenly, she slumped against the wooden desk.
“Truly······ all of a sudden again, I feel annoyed······ and sleepy. After reproaching you for lying to me······ I meant to learn some······ runes······.”
Sophien’s languid trailing voice ceased. I looked at Keiron.
Keiron nodded.
Once again, the door to the underground had opened.
* * *
「7th Cycle」
I entered the past of the underground. The scene that appeared as soon as I opened the door was the garden of the Imperial Palace.
A spring lake. Its surface reflected Sophien.
She was sitting in a wheelchair. I tried to approach her, but it seemed I was already too late.
Her eyes and ears were gone. It was also the final moment of her life.
I could not let her know I had come. I could not tell her that I had failed to keep my promise.
Your Majesty───!
The retainers gathered around her wept as they called out to Sophien.
I approached her. Rustle— the grass was stepped on, and dirt scattered. The dying Sophien asked in a thin voice.
—Who is······ beside me?
A question she could not even hear the answer to, for she was already deaf.
“Yes. I am beside you.”
The moment I answered Sophien’s words.
—······I wish someone were.
And the moment she murmured that.
The world transformed.
Ruuuuuuumble──!
A tremor that shook heaven and earth.
Soon, the entire space collapsed, and then turned over anew.
A ‘regression’ was taking place at rapid speed.
「······13th Cycle」
The scenery of the Imperial Palace rebuilt once more.
Sophien of the 13th Cycle.
Before the suffering of her illness grew worse, she hanged herself.
And the world changed again.
「······16th Cycle」
Sophien of the 16th Cycle.
She died while receiving a charlatan’s folk remedy brought from the Dadohae.
「······21st Cycle」
Sophien of the 21st Cycle.
Exhausted by regression, she wept and wept, then smashed her forehead into a rock and died.
「······29th Cycle」
Sophien of the 29th Cycle refused to eat and starved to death.
Like that, the 33rd Cycle, 37th Cycle, 40th Cycle, 43rd Cycle, 48th Cycle, 53rd Cycle······.
I watched every moment of her death from beyond the mirror. The 「Demon’s Mirror」 deliberately showed me Sophien’s deaths.
In the gaps between them, Nesius rampaged, but there was nothing I could do.
“······.”
As I observed and accepted her many kinds of death.
I came to a certain realization.
“······Mirror. I think I understand now. What it is you want.”
Why this 「Demon’s Mirror」 was preserving abandoned worlds.
Why it was so fixated on Sophien’s deaths.
And why it existed through the medium of a ‘mirror.’
“A ‘world.’”
I looked up at the sky as I said so.
“Yes, a world. That is what you wish to become.”
Then, a door appeared in midair.
An ordinary, plain wooden door that told me my answer was correct. It touched down upon the ground as silently as falling snow dust.
I opened that door.
* * *
“What did you see inside?”
Having returned to the Imperial Palace, I walked the first-floor corridor with Keiron. It was the so-called ‘Forest of Knights,’ where statues of knights in plate armor stood lined up on both sides.
“I realized something.”
Because these knight statues contained a specific magical resonance, eavesdropping or surveillance was impossible.
“What?”
Keiron asked.
“First, ‘regression’ occurs solely around Her Majesty. Of this much, I am almost certain.”
In truth, it was more than that.
Perhaps this entire world revolves around Sophien.
“And the 「Demon’s Mirror」 wants a ‘world.’”
“······A world?”
“Yes. The thing underground is a demon that far transcends the common sense of the human world.”
This demon has intent. It has intellect. It has desire.
The countless worlds discarded as Sophien regressed. I suspect that the thing, having grown and matured together with them, came to have a single dream as time passed.
‘I want to become like that world too.’
‘I want people to live in my world as well, and for each day to continue into the next.’
‘I want to become not a mirror, but reality······.’
Therefore, now, the 「Demon’s Mirror」 wants it.
The being that makes this world a world. Sophien, who is the ‘proof of this world.’
“Is it a thing trying to become a god?”
“More than that.”
“What is the method to resolve it?”
“······.”
I looked at Keiron. Keiron’s face was still firm.
“Keiron. What happened with tailing Nesius?”
“We continue to pursue him, but no location that can be specified has appeared. He is leading us round and round as if mocking me.”
“Yes. The man is likely a diversion.”
The 「Demon’s Mirror」 wishes to become a world of its own. Not something like a mirror, but a true world, and it wishes to exist in this phenomenal realm.
Simply granting that wish is the next best option.
“It must have spread several Nesiuses across the continent as diversions. However, for some reason, I think I know where the ‘Altar’ bastards are gathering Her Majesty’s regressions.”
“Where?”
Keiron fixed his gaze on my mouth. His eyes blazed like a conflagration. It was somewhat burdensome.
I said,
“Yulie gave me the hint.”
“By hint, you mean······.”
“Did she not say a demon had appeared in the underground of the Imperial Palace?”
“······What?”
Keiron furrowed his brow and asked again.
I reminded him of a certain fact. It was information he already knew as well.
“There is one more door that leads underground, is there not?”
There is not only one door to the underground. The passage connected to the 「Demon’s Mirror」 is the back door, but there is a separate front door.
“It is darkest under the lamp, Keiron.”
In the past, Jollang had tried and failed to guide me underground through the main gate. That door, which had not opened even once until now.
A dumbfounded smile touched Keiron’s lips.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“We still do not know whether the regressions gathered by the ‘Altar’ amount to several hundred years or several thousand. However, we must make use of it first.”
“……I understand what you mean. But Yuli might not have been the only one who regressed that day. The enemy may have regressed as well—”
I shook my head. It was a reasonable suspicion, but given the nature of the demon Nesius, it was impossible.
“That will not be the case. Nesius is a simple demon, capable only of harvesting and transporting. To make artificial use of the essence he harvests, one would have to kill him, and killing him would be a breach of contract.”
“A breach of contract?”
“Yes. Lesser demons like Nesius are generally products of contracts. They possess intellect and even emotions, so if the terms of the contract are not honored, they sulk. Under a group that killed one of their own kind, they would refuse to carry out any task.”
“They sulk, you say…… Hah.”
Keiron let out a laugh, as if utterly at a loss.
“Keiron, we will carry it out five days from now. Until then, live as normally as possible.”
“I will.”
Leaving only those words behind, I turned away. I had not taken more than a few steps before Keiron stopped me.
“Are you planning to leave at once? That knight Yuli will wake soon. You are not going with her?”
“……”
Both of my legs froze in place. I thought of Yuli lying in the hospital room.
“……There is no need.”
The upheaval of regression must have had an immense adverse effect on Yuli.
I could not even fathom how much of her life force she had spent in order to meet me again.
Precisely because of that, I must not be by her side. I could not be her affirmation; I would only be a mere worsening factor.
“Yuli no longer needs to be my escort. I shall inform His Majesty as well. A knight in poor health is nothing more than baggage, not an escort.”
Saying that, I sadly sensed it.
The parting that was now not far off.
Our relationship, which would fall like a withered blossom, be trampled, and vanish.
* * *
“……Hmm.”
Meanwhile, Primienne set down the letter with a sigh.
Inferring events through the collation of information was, to some extent, connected to Primienne’s magical characteristics, and so she had succeeded in grasping a vague outline in a mere 28 hours.
Grrrrrk—!
She “pulled” the timeline she had constructed out of her head, then placed it into a “mana container.”
Here, the mana container was, literally, a square frame composed of mana. If she placed her memories inside it, this container would continue the logical inferences on its own.
It was known as the “materialization of thoughts and memories.”
It was the reason Primienne had been able to become the youngest Deputy Director of Public Security.
Bzzzzzz— bzzzzzz—
Her memories and thoughts flashed as if being scanned. Once the process had progressed to a certain extent, Primienne put her memories back into her head.
After accepting that unbiased, logical inference, she turned her head.
“Ellie.”
“Yes?”
Ellie, who had been rummaging through the drawers of the “Purple Room,” answered. Primienne rubbed the back of her neck as she asked,
“You said Professor Deculein observes the anniversary of a death, didn’t you?”
“The anniversary of a death?”
“The anniversary of his fiancée’s death.”
“Ah, yes! He hasn’t missed it even once, every year.”
At that, one corner of Primienne’s mouth twitched upward.
“Then I understand now. Why that professor requested an investigation into Cielia.”
“Really?!”
“Yes. For now, it is still at the level of suspicion, but it is almost certain.”
“Ah, yes! Then please write up a report and send it to the Professor.”
At Ellie’s words, Primienne stiffened with a crack. Then she glared at her through narrowed eyes.
“……A report?”
“Yes. The Professor likes reports, you see. He prefers that most things be delivered to him as reports. He says face-to-face meetings involve too much talking, spittle flying, and take too long.”
“Mmm. What a terribly sensitive son of a bitch.”
She silently pressed a finger to her temple. To compile this enormous matter into a report…… Who did he think she was, some low-ranking underling?
Muttering every curse under the sun, Primienne said,
“Fine. In exchange, I will spit on the report, so know that.”
“No~ You can’t, you can’t do that!”
“That is up to me.”
Primienne placed a sheet of paper on the desk and picked up a pen. At the same time, she examined her own memories.
The investigation into Cielia that Deculein had requested.
As a result, Primienne had learned that Deculein himself had killed Cielia.
To put it dryly, “Deculein murdered Cielia.” His motive was probably revenge, and he had likely been put up to it as well.
However, the other hidden story that perhaps only the Intelligence Bureau knew…… she still did not know.
“Ellie. Ask that Intelligence Bureau bastard for a favor. This document.”
“Yes~ I’ll at least ask.”
A level-one or level-two classified document, impossible to open even in the Purple Room.
If she could tear open just this one thing, it seemed she would be able to know the entire truth.
“A report, is it. That professor truly makes people’s lives difficult……”
Afterward, Primienne first began to write the timeline she understood into a report.