[I have one last gift to give you. Not as Rohakan, but as your teacher… Ah. Of course I know. That I’ve done nothing for you worthy of calling myself your teacher. Still, well, what can I do? When you were young, I took money from your father and made a promise. That I would become your teacher. I, too, am a mage who keeps his promises.]
It was an absurd sentence. Had it been the original Deculein, he would have ground his teeth in humiliation, or disgrace.
However.
“Primienne.”
“Yes.”
I spoke while reading Rohakan’s letter.
“We’re moving out.”
“…I will prepare the horses.”
Primienne went outside, and my gaze returned to the sentences.
[My disciple. When I first came to understand the world, I had grown old. Yet as the world has grown, now I am young.]
Rohakan.
He had awakened his own Eight-series and gained aging. As he developed that magic, he became young again.
The magical origin of his power was the “World Line.”
A tremendous power superior to Epherene’s origin of “time,” to Ellie’s origin of “space,” and even to Adrienne’s origin of “destruction”—a power no human could accept.
A fate in which the higher his realm rose, the closer he came to death.
[I remember the day I first met Sophien. She was such a perfect child. Perfect, as if someone had sculpted her.]
Rohakan’s voice seemed to reach my ears.
A certain scene rose like a mirage in the middle of the library. It was magic soaked into the sentences.
—You learn quite well, don’t you? Your magical talent is extraordinary.
—…Do not speak to me informally!
Before she experienced the endlessly recurring poisonings, Sophien, purely five years old, and Rohakan, far too old.
—Oh? This little one. Are you showing signs of becoming a tyrant?
—What did you say?!
—Tsk. Hurry up and read this book.
—What did you say?!
As a close friend of the late emperor Krebaim and an invited mage, Rohakan was teaching Sophien theory. The colors of that past were clear and blue.
[As I thought about why you, Deculein, are loyal to the Imperial Family, I came to understand. It is because, more than anyone else, you follow elitism deep in your bones.]
With that voice, the scene changed.
A dark corridor of the Imperial Palace.
Someone’s blood flowed in with a splash, soaking a child’s small feet.
The child, her shoes dyed red, stepped backward and stared ahead with trembling eyes.
—…Rohakan.
Rohakan did not answer the princess’s call. Sophien, who had been staring blankly at him, soon turned her gaze to the corridor where the stream of blood approached, and to the person collapsed powerlessly there.
A woman whose throat had been pierced, spilling blood. Pupils that had lost their light.
Her dead mother.
—…Why?
At the child’s question, Rohakan silently closed his eyes. Then, letting out a deep breath like a sigh, he answered in a low voice.
—Yes. I killed her.
Rohakan, the assassin of the Empress.
The incident in which a mage respected by all people fell, in an instant, into the continent’s worst Black Beast.
[In this world, and sometimes for people, there are times when a blood-soaked lie is needed more than a pure white truth. I think you, Deculein, know that better than anyone. But I do not wish to lie even to you.]
The magical recollection settled like dust, and the scenery returned once more to the Imperial Palace library.
[Deculein, my disciple whom I still have many occasions to meet…]
The sentence that continued on the next page.
[In the future I see, Sophien killed you. She will kill you.]
Words announcing, once again, Deculein’s predetermined death.
[I do not know whether this paragraph alone will change the future, or whether it is a fixed future that includes all of this as well. Perhaps you may not believe my words themselves. You may scorn me as a mere shaman. For I cannot prove what I see to anyone.]
I had no choice but to believe.
Because those were Rohakan’s words. Because he, a key piece of this world, had seen the future with his own eyes.
[Mm, mm. I feel as though I can hear your voice saying something to me. In any case, I will now wait for you. The vineyard to the northeast. You will be able to meet me there at any time…]
The last of the writing he left behind.
Countless words and thoughts foamed up in my head, but I quietly put the document down. Turning my back, I spoke to Lexil.
“I’m leaving. I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”
“Yes. Please go safely.”
When I came up from underground, Primienne was waiting with two horses.
She held out the reins and asked.
“Where are we moving out to?”
……
“Ah. The professor is leaving, Your Majesty.”
The words of the court lady watching through the window.
Two horses carrying Deculein and Primienne departed beyond the gates of the Imperial Palace.
“You may return now.”
“Yes, Your Majesty…”
Sophien watched him, then rose to her feet.
Step by step, she left her bedchamber, passed through the corridor where faint electric lights flickered, and descended the stairs.
Thus she reached the Imperial Palace’s underground library.
Creeeak—
The door opened.
Lexil, who had been organizing the stacks, approached, and Sophien asked him.
“Lexil.”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What did that man read?”
“The last thing the professor read was this material.”
The document happened to be in Lexil’s hand. The papers Deculein had read before leaving.
Sophien received them.
“……”
Flip, flip—the loud rustle rang out.
As she skimmed through the pages in the silence, she soon discovered Rohakan’s sentence written in one corner.
[Mm, mm. Around now, Deculein, you should be reading this paper, yes? It’s me, Rohakan.]
Sophien read slowly.
Without a word, simply in silence.
[…In the future I see, Sophien killed you. She will kill you.]
The words written there.
An unchanging trace.
Sophien closed her eyes, then opened them. She clenched her teeth.
“…Your Majesty.”
Lexil’s tone was worried. Before Sophien could answer him, his magic dyed the document blue.
Within that mana, someone’s thoughts and sentences bloomed.
─Rohakan, the future you saw is likely not false. It is probably true. For no mage can measure your depth.
Words that continued as if answering Rohakan.
—However, Rohakan. I am Deculein. I do not bow myself before a future that has yet to arrive. I cannot bow. Because that is my self, and my dignity.
Deculein’s voice shimmered by her ear.
—If Her Majesty truly harms me, that too will be something I can gladly accept. As you said, it will be because of the ideology embedded very deeply in my bones.
Clearly, as if he were murmuring right before her eyes…
—Chosen. A class distinctly separate from common men. A noble who is never ordinary and never corrupt. The head of Yukline, a great house bearing a long history.
Self-praise.
—Because such noble concepts define me, if there is one whom I serve, then he must be greater than I, and a being more precious and noble. He must, without fail, be so.
The heart continued onto the next page.
—That is why I volunteered to become Her Majesty’s subject. Her Majesty is a being who is proof of this world. The most lofty and the most solitary sovereign, one who needs a guide. Therefore, I intend to remain by her side.
Sophien crumpled the document tightly.
—Rohakan. A subject simply waits. If my lord is my destiny, then I merely wait for that destiny to come. However…
There were sentences left, but it felt like a loophole.
As a sovereign, and as an emperor, her sense of self would not allow it.
“…Even if you die.”
Sophien muttered softly, then twisted the corner of her mouth with a faint scoff. Then she rummaged inside her robe and needlessly took out the snow globe.
“Keiron.”
In a situation like this, he was at least someone with whom she could exchange opinions, tight-lipped as he was. The wicked knight trapped inside this thing.
However, the door of the snow globe was firmly shut and would not open, and Keiron showed no sign of coming out.
“…Deculein says he waits for Us like destiny.”
Sophien placed a hand over her heart. She had not grown used to the strange pulse that beat and stopped, beat and stopped. An inexplicable heat lingered in her trembling breath.
“And you are making Us wait for you in there?”
There were only two subjects with whom Sophien could consult, and since this was a matter concerning one of those subjects, she would need the other.
“You damned bastard.”
Sophien tapped the snow globe with a tak.
* * *
Rohakan was looking up at the sky.
The pale drawing paper of the northeast, where traces of winter still remained. He looked up at that high ceiling, searching for something, still wandering.
Life.
The lives of everyone on this continent, which he had once promised Deculein.
However, no matter how he thought about it, Rohakan himself was not included in that “everyone.”
“……”
He suddenly lowered his eyes and looked at the path through the vineyard. He had sensed presences approaching him.
A fussy, impolite act focused solely on the purposes of concealment and ambush.
“…Hey~! Over here~!”
Rohakan flapped his hand and announced his presence. At that, the many figures hidden in the shadows took a guarded stance.
The Imperial Intelligence Bureau.
They were, as expected, masters of pursuit, and always bizarrely quick.
But there was one problem—no, one fortunate point: they were tremendously obsessed with achievement and monopoly.
On the surface, they pretended to cooperate with outsiders, while acting on their own to crave the Imperial Family’s attention and affection. Hunting dogs trained that way from the very beginning.
“Must be hundreds of you, hm? Yet you always come alone!”
There were no knights, nor anything else.
No, he had thought there would be none.
“You are not alone.”
The one who said that was Gawain, the Imperial Family’s first knight.
Along with him was Vice Commander Isaac.
The dozen or so knights who appeared with the chief agent of the Intelligence Bureau were certainly not some rabble.
“Oho. You prepared quite a lot~ I didn’t foresee even this.”
Deculein had not yet arrived. That one would take a little longer.
Of course, this place was the North as well.
“You are surrounded, Rohakan.”
Gawain announced as he drew his sword. Vice Commander Isaac’s entire body was already filled with fighting spirit and aura.
In addition, the killing intent of the Intelligence Bureau hidden in the shadows came creeping in as if it would stab his throat at any moment.
“It has been a long time, Rohakan.”
Isaac spoke. The anger in his voice was close to passion. Isaac, too, was an old acquaintance of Rohakan’s.
A novice knight who had chased him after he assassinated the Empress. That child had grown at some point and become the vice commander of the Imperial Knights.
“…Deculein isn’t here?”
Rohakan swept his senses over every presence in the area, but as expected, Deculein was not there.
“Didn’t want Yukline to steal your achievement, hm? Well. All of you desire the Emperor’s love. How have you endured all that envy and jealousy until now? No, perhaps you couldn’t endure it, and you’re about to cause something soon?”
No answer came back. Only silence.
How foolish. It must mean they agreed.
“But… I wonder if you know?”
Rohakan looked around at them and smiled generously.
“The fact that I did not foresee you in my future means—”
Mana bloomed around his body. It did not surge noisily, nor did it violently shake the earth.
Transcendence, perhaps, was something like this.
There was no need to whip mana through nature, no need to release it explosively, no need to forcibly assert his own strength.
Just naturally, like a river flowing.
“That you were of no importance to me.”
Snap—!
Just once, the sound of thumb and middle finger touching and snapping.
That resonance formed a circuit, realized a grand magic, and spread out in waves. Like the ring of a planet, it stretched across the vast vineyard…
* * *
…Dawn passed, and the morning sun rose.
When we arrived at the vineyard to the northeast where Rohakan said he would be waiting.
The quiet meeting between just the two of us had already been ruined.
“We are already late.”
Primienne muttered as if yawning. I nodded as well. For now, since the situation was as it was, there was nothing to be done.
“Professor! Professor!”
From somewhere, a knight approached.
An unnamed knight of the Imperial Palace.
With a terrified expression, he introduced his name and rank, but there seemed to be no need to remember them.
“What happened?”
“I-I don’t really know either. It’s just. It’s just that… I was only watching from behind, but Rohakan snapped his fingers—just like that—and then suddenly…”
The vineyard.
That entire vineyard had become a magical space. The grapevines had grown like some World Tree, the tendrils had swelled like a jungle, and the vividly rippling concentration of mana had become more than 1% denser than the outside.
“W-what in the world is going on, Professor?”
I looked out over the vineyard. Even with 「Comprehension」, it was a difficult situation to grasp.
Just what sort of den had Rohakan created?
“The vineyard has become a magical space. It’s been stained by Rohakan’s mana.”
“……There are still many knights trapped inside.”
At the knight’s words, Primienne asked in return.
“Support?”
“Yes. For now, including the northern knight, Sir Zait, and the Red Garnet that happened to be standing by here…….”
“Not needed.”
Whooooosh— Wind surged in from the vineyard. It was a cold gust steeped in mana.
I adjusted my great tiger hide robe. I planted my magicwood staff on the road.
“I’ll go in alone.”
“……Pardon? N-no, Professor! Rohakan is practically rampaging right now—”
“Rampage is a word used only for vermin without reason.”
Rohakan.
If he had created a situation like this, he must have another purpose.
Above all, since he had called me, I would enter that place without fail.
“Professor. Will you be all right?”
“……I can’t say for certain.”
The vineyard. That place, swallowed by mana, was exceedingly dangerous. What was more, the remnants of my injuries still remained in my body.
However…….
I tore the 「Rare Trait Catalog」 in my possession.
[Use: Rare Trait Catalog]
The reward from clearing the last quest. The trait I would acquire with this was exactly as I had said before.
「Fortitude」.
To put it very simply, it was adding just one more drop to my ‘Mental Strength,’ which was already brimming over.
Even I did not yet know what change that would lead to.
The reason I had delayed using it until now was also because of that uncertainty.
[Trait Acquired: 「Fortitude」]
To face Rohakan, who had already reached—no, surpassed—the realm of an Archmage.
This level of preparation would be necessary.
* * *
Meanwhile, Yuli, who had been engrossed in restoring the livelihoods of the people and rebuilding the village at Reccordak, widened her eyes the moment she received certain news.
“Is that true?!”
“I’m telling you, it is!”
A shocking report that Rohakan had appeared in the vineyard to the northeast, and that dozens of knights and hundreds of Intelligence Bureau agents had been sacrificed.
“You know, the place that produces white grapes! Those delicious grapes that only grow in winter and early spring!”
“I know! I’ve eaten them!”
Yuli hurriedly put on her armor. She was in such a rush that she could not even tie the knots properly. She tied them roughly and dashed out.
“A horse! A horse! Hurry!”
Unlike her usual self, Yuli demanded a horse almost incoherently, and the guard, bewildered, handed one over.
“Hyah!”
“I’m going with you!”
Yuli’s horse galloped off in haste. Rayleigh’s horse chased after its tail.
And on top of Reccordak’s walls, a certain mage watched the two of them.
“Rohakan…….”
Sylvia. Having overheard Yuli’s words, she pondered for a moment, but soon created a small airship. Goggles and a helmet came as a set.
Buuuung──
She immediately climbed into the pilot’s seat and chased after Yuli, surveying the distant land with 「Wind」 magic.
“……?”
What entered her sight was Rohakan’s magical space, which could not be pierced even by 「Wind」.
And——
Deculein, entering all alone.
“Ah.”
Seeing that absurdly reckless sight, Sylvia murmured softly.
“……No.”