“Please become a proper master to me.”
I looked at Rohakan. Rohakan looked back at me, then smiled brightly.
And then he spoke.
“Your talent is certainly abysmal. Even your current level of achievement could be called a miracle.”
“……”
“Of course, you must have put in a corresponding amount of effort. However, your achievement would have been impossible without a change in your soul.”
A change in the soul.
For some reason, the words weighed on my mind.
“But do not be disheartened. Even if you kill me today, you will always be able to meet the past me here.”
“……You mean the past Rohakan.”
“Yes. I created this space because I wanted to remain a little longer. I stretched out what remained of my life as much as I could and left it in this space. A slightly older Rohakan exists in this vineyard.”
I looked around the vineyard. Magic power and time flowed as though intertwined with one another. That movement was visible to my “Six Eyes.”
Suddenly, a sentence from the letter Rohakan had left came to mind.
[Deculein, my disciple whom I will meet many times…….]
“So that is why you called me a disciple you would meet many times.”
“Yes. Here, I have already met countless future versions of you. You who killed me, and then came to meet me again.”
Rohakan’s Origin, “Worldline.”
What he had created here was his own worldline.
In other words, he had “stretched out” his past self and future self.
“I see.”
“Yes. So for now, kill me today. Your instruction can only begin after that. You who returned after killing me had very distinct magic power, you see?”
It was probably because of the “quality of magic power.” If I killed Rohakan and strengthened the quality of my magic power with the Three Pure Ones currency, I would become a third-grade mage, a level I could take some pride in even in this worldview.
“……In that case, I will not delay.”
“Good. Ah, there are many knights down below that hillside, so take them with you. I did not kill them, only bound them, so they are likely wandering through their own memories. With your mental strength, you should be able to save them.”
“Yes.”
I rose to my feet. I activated the “Snowflower Stone” with magic power.
Crrrk—
Blue-white crystals formed a straight line in midair as if freezing over. They were honed sharply, like a blade.
“Deculein.”
Rohakan spoke. He looked up at the high sky, and I gripped the sword’s hilt.
“When the time comes one day, tell Sophie this.”
Whoooosh— A wind of magic power blew. The leaves of the grapevines rustled. From the long-grown branches, white grapes scattered like snowflakes.
“……That curse of yours made everyone at your side unhappy, and will continue to do so.”
Rohakan closed his eyes, murmuring as if speaking into the empty air. The passing wind carried his voice.
“But the time I spent with you was joyful.”
A smile bloomed at the corners of Rohakan’s mouth. And then, he called my name again.
“……Deculein.”
“Please speak.”
“Even if Sophien kills you someday, you will remain at her side, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
I answered without hesitation.
At Sophien’s side, as her subject, Deculein would remain. Of course, that was also because the being called Sophien was closely connected to the main quest, but it was also due to the workings of my personality.
“……I see.”
Rohakan nodded.
“I am glad you are there. Let us meet again next time, my disciple.”
There were no further words. As if announcing a farewell, the wind ceased.
“Yes.”
I cut Rohakan down. The Snowflower Stone dug into his neck.
Even in that instant, my heart was calm and cold. At the same time, a certain scene rose like an afterimage.
—……Why?
A dark corridor of the Imperial Palace. Blood flowing from her dead mother. As it soaked her feet, young Sophien asked Rohakan.
Why.
At that question, a single word, Rohakan of that time bit his lip. He clenched his fists.
But what he had to say, what he had to tell a child, had already been decided.
—I killed her.
……As I placed the dead Rohakan’s head into the wooden box, I thought.
The person who murdered the Empress.
Perhaps that person had been Sophien herself.
* * *
……Meanwhile, Yuli and Sylvia were lying among the grapevine tendrils.
“It’s because you forced your way on.”
No, they were bound. The more they tried to escape, the deeper the branches’ restraints entangled them. Having quietly given up, the two instead conversed comfortably.
“I am looking for a way.”
Yuli said. Sylvia glared at her through half-lidded eyes and snapped back.
“It’s because you forced your way on. It’s because you’re heavy.”
“……I am not heavy.”
“You’re over seventy kilograms.”
“Pardon? Ah, wh-what? I am not. And, no, even if I were, that is natural for a knight.”
Sylvia shook her head. Leaning her back against the vine, she looked up at the sky.
A space so clear that one could see the mana in the air.
Just by breathing here, Sylvia was growing. Her magic capacity was increasing in real time.
Because that was the kind of talent she possessed.
“……”
Sylvia silently turned her eyes to look at Yuli. The knight was groaning as she tried to escape. But her hands and feet had already been caught, and she could not move an inch.
“How are you planning to take revenge on Deculein?”
At Sylvia’s question, Yuli briefly stopped moving.
“……Revenge, you say.”
“Yeah.”
Yuli was thinking about many things.
The revenge she could exact on Deculein. A just way to repay everyone’s grudges.
“My revenge is simple. It is to make Deculein himself admit all of his crimes.”
“What crimes does he have?”
“There are many people he has ruined.”
Even leaving aside the knights of Frenheim, there were many mages whose careers had been ruined by Deculein. Yuli had been speaking with them.
“……And there are also people whose lives he has taken. I am gathering that evidence.”
Sylvia gazed steadily at Yuli. Then, as if tossing the words out, she added one sentence.
“My mother is among them.”
“……Pardon?”
At that moment, Yuli’s face filled with surprise. Sylvia said,
“Deculein killed my mother.”
“……”
Yuli was rendered speechless. Not knowing how to react, she only stiffened her expression.
Because clumsy comfort, widening her eyes, or letting her mouth fall open might all be wounds to Sylvia.
“So I’ll kill him too.”
Sylvia looked up at the sky again. Pale mana gathered in her golden eyes.
“He has to die by my hand.”
Yuli merely looked at her. She did not harbor pity or sympathy.
Yuli already knew that even that would be rude.
From the moment she had become engaged to Deculein, the gazes of her fellow knights pitying her had instead made her shrink further, had tormented her even more……
“I have the right to kill him.”
Sylvia’s voice muttered, deep and low.
“……Yes.”
Yuli quietly nodded. For some reason, she found herself laughable.
What she herself had suffered at Deculein’s hands seemed not to amount to even a single grain of what this young mage had endured.
“You have that right.”
As Yuli answered, her heart froze cold.
Not mere low temperature, but bitter frost. Toward the countless sins Deculein had committed—
“Ugh!”
At that moment, the vine restraints loosened in an instant.
Yuli plummeted to the ground, while Sylvia flew off with an eagle that had come from somewhere.
Thud—!
However, a knight was, by nature, one who had mastered the human body. Their reflexes and coordination were more agile than even a cat’s, so at the moment of her fall, Yuli put her legs beneath her and landed on the road surface.
“……Ah.”
And then she faced a certain man standing over there.
A professor in a suit. Holding some wooden box in one hand, looking at her.
Deculein.
“What were you doing up there?”
“……Knight Yuli?”
Another voice came from behind him. Yuli opened her eyes wide and looked at him.
“Ah, Vice-Captain?”
Vice-Captain Isaac. Beside him stood Gawain, a junior knight from her old university days. Gawain smiled when he saw Yuli, but soon glanced at Deculein beside him and hardened his expression solemnly.
“What happened?”
At Yuli’s question, Isaac, Gawain, and the other Imperial Palace knights all wore faces that seemed thoroughly ashamed—no, already stained with humiliation—as they spoke in low voices.
“……We were defeated by Rohakan, and rescued by Professor Deculein.”
“……”
Yuli turned to Deculein and quietly asked,
“Is that so?”
“……”
At that, Deculein silently swept his gaze over the faces of the knights—Yuli, Isaac, Gawain, and the rest.
As if they were truly pathetic. With contemptuous eyes.
“There are quite a lot of ignorant fools here who do not even heed orders.”
At last came his sharply reproachful words.
A harsh crease was carved between his brows.
“The imperial command was clearly entrusted to me, yet blinded by your thirst for glory, you acted on your own and committed this verminous stupidity……”
Even under that verbal abuse, the knights lowered their heads without a word. Even Vice-Captain Isaac did so.
Yuli, who had not understood the situation for a moment, suddenly noticed the wooden box held in Deculein’s arms.
“That is……”
Without answering, Deculein passed by Yuli, and the knights followed behind at a certain distance.
Yuli also approached from behind their group and asked,
“May I ask for an explanation of the situation?”
“……It has been a while, Yuli. Though meeting you in a place like this, in such a state, is not exactly pleasant.”
“Yes.”
Isaac looked rather reluctant, but he answered simply, almost in a whisper.
“……Rohakan is dead. Deculein killed him.”
“!”
To Yuli, whose eyes had grown as large as soccer balls, Isaac muttered as if making an excuse.
“Perhaps it really was right for a mage to face a mage……”
The knights’ sighs sank low.
Amid them, Yuli silently stared at Deculein’s back.
* * *
“———Your Majesty!”
Meanwhile, back in the great hall of the Imperial Palace.
Sophien, who had been solving Deculein’s life-and-death problems, frowned at the sudden booming voice.
“What……”
She had been on the verge of finding the answer. Sophien glared in that direction as though ready to mete out severe punishment.
“What is it?”
“This is grave news—no, auspicious news, Your Majesty—!”
“……”
Auspicious news. Had there been anything in the Empire that could be called auspicious? Sophien thought for a moment, but as expected, there was none.
She had, of course, heard the news that Rohakan had been found. Along with the dogshit dispatch that the Imperial Knights had botched the matter.
“So what auspicious—”
“Professor Deculein is said to be returning with Rohakan’s head!”
“……”
Sophien’s mouth closed for a moment. She looked at the subject’s face, then again at Deculein’s life-and-death problem, and asked back in a low voice.
“……Rohakan’s head.”
“Yes! He is said to be arriving any moment now!”
“……”
“It is auspicious news, auspicious news! An auspicious occasion for the Empire! The head of that Black Beast—”
“I understand.”
Sophien cut him off. The subject, who had been trembling with emotion, quickly shut his mouth as well.
“I understand, so leave.”
“……Yes.”
The subject turned and went outside, and Sophien looked again at the life-and-death problem.
The baduk problem Deculein had composed for her. As she racked her brain to solve it, she thought once more.
“……Rohakan. You bastard.”
She murmured quietly.
“Were you one to die so easily?”
Strangely, her heart felt hollow. It did not feel particularly good, nor sweet.
Rather, it was bizarrely empty.
“……”
Even when she had given Deculein this mission, she had not expected him to capture Rohakan. She had not even dared imagine that he would bring back his head.
“……Deculein.”
She quietly called his name.
Had that man taken the head of one who had become his master for her sake?
“I am curious.”
What conversation had that man exchanged with Rohakan before returning?
“……Your Majesty.”
The quiet question of a palace maid beside her. Sophien glanced at the girl who had bowed her head.
“Is it not time…… for you to accept the professor’s visits?”
“……”
After making such presumptuous advice, the insolent palace maid subtly lifted her head.
Sophien shook her head and sat down in her chair.
And then, she declared in a single sentence.
“When the professor returns, tell him to come to the place of learning.”