A dark night on the island. In the guild room, eerie as if ghosts were brushing past, Idnik was conferring with Jukaken and Al Los.
“For now, catching Gerek is the most important thing. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but if he keeps killing Deculein like this, it will cause problems not only with the completion of the magic circle, but with Sylvia’s mental state as well.”
She did not divulge her “deduction” to Jukaken and Al Los. It was not certain yet, and above all, if Deculein’s method truly was the “best” way to protect the continent…….
As a mage of the desert, Idnik would choose that path.
For the sacrifice of the small for the sake of the greater good was a mage’s basic disposition.
“Okay. Then what about the scarecrow?”
“We’ll have to make another. The scarecrow we’d placed as Deculein’s escort has already been destroyed. Gerek’s doing, no doubt…….”
Creeeak—
Just then, for some reason, the guild room door opened with a chill sound. Al Los, Jukaken, and Idnik all turned to look at it at once.
And then goosebumps rose all over their bodies. The backs of their necks stiffened.
“Uh…….”
The eighth Deculein.
Beyond the threshold, he was standing in the darkness. He was looking at them.
As everyone fell silent, he approached without a word and sat down at the desk and chair. Then, as if nothing were wrong, he began reading his magic theory.
Watching him, Jukaken muttered blankly.
“……Who guided him here?”
“……No one.”
“Then how did he get here?”
“I don’t know.”
The whispering voices of Jukaken and Al Los. Their gazes, shaking this way and that in shock. The taut, strained atmosphere.
As if all of it irritated him, Deculein turned to them. Frowning, he asked in a low voice.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Of course we do. You were…… killed by Gerek.”
“Gerek?”
Deculein asked back. Al Los quickly answered.
“Yes. Deculein. Gerek is after you. You’re in danger right now. For the time being, stay only inside here.”
“…….”
But Deculein shook his head. Idnik watched him closely.
Al Los frowned.
“Why? I’m telling you Gerek is after you.”
“Three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“…….”
Without another word, he lifted a sheet of paper. Idnik saw it as well.
An employment contract.
Signed by Deculein and Sylvia.
“I have a contract to uphold.”
“…….”
At that, Idnik secretly clenched her molars. Al Los sighed and shook her head.
Jukaken said,
“Fine, whatever. Do what you want. You come back to life even if you die anyway.”
* * *
……You come back to life even if you die anyway.
Whether it was because of that damn optimism from Jukaken, that idiot, or whether that was why things had come to this, Al Los still thought about it from time to time.
Of course, a single remark could not have caused all of this, but perhaps she needed someone to resent.
Thud──!
Al Los set a bundle of papers down on the guild room desk.
They were tracking maps marking every place where Deculein had died so far. Countless points were marked with an “X.”
Using these, she had worked tirelessly to determine Gerek’s location, Gerek’s residence, Gerek’s route, and so on, but there had been no answer.
“Phew…….”
When she sighed, her white breath spread like cigarette smoke.
This place, the Island of Voice, was in winter. A winter that had lasted for one year, with snow falling every night.
Since the scenery of this island was no different from Sylvia’s inner landscape, to borrow Idnik’s words, it could be called “an extremely dangerous state.”
“……Gerek. Where on earth are you?”
Deculein came back to life even if he died. He did not even need Sylvia’s help. Once his lifespan ended, he simply revived somewhere on this island.
It was because of Deculein’s unique 「Mental Fortitude」.
In that way, his resurrection was surely infinite, but if he was killed the moment he came back, it meant nothing.
Even if he revived infinitely, if he was killed infinitely, then in the end, it was no different from being dead.
“…….”
Al Los silently looked at the box containing the magic theory.
It was Deculein’s magic theory, and yet for two years, it had not once borne Deculein’s touch. Al Los sometimes wiped off that dust-covered box. For some reason, she felt sorry for it, abandoned by its owner.
“Three years and three months, is it?”
Three years and three months.
That was the time that had passed since Jukaken’s optimism that he would come back to life even if he died anyway.
Of that, Sylvia’s home tutoring had lasted only three months.
For the remaining three years, Deculein had been made to repeat death. Without reaching the guild room, without even reaching Sylvia’s house, he had been murdered by Gerek.
“……He put on all that tough act by himself. And all he did was die.”
Al Los muttered as she picked up a crumpled drawing. It was a sketch Deculein had drawn for her quite some time ago.
As she looked at it, it was not that she felt no longing at all. The professor’s disgusting compliments sometimes came to mind as well.
Mysterious, was it? Beautiful, was it? Artistic, was it…….
Creeeak—
Just then, someone opened the door. Al Los quickly hid the drawing.
“Hey, Al Los.”
It was Jukaken. Without even brushing the snow off his body, he said,
“Idnik is calling. Says she has something to say.”
“……Where?”
Al Los was reluctant to go outside. After all, Gerek had smashed the scarecrow to pieces.
Now that they even lacked the coins to buy food, they had no materials to make another.
“To Sylvia. She said to come to the central lighthouse.”
“…….”
Al Los frowned. Jukaken wore a similar expression, but he shrugged and added,
“She says there’s something very important she needs to say.”
* * *
……It’s a fairy-language story.
On some hazy day from long ago, Sylvia showed Deculein a fairy tale she had written herself.
A fairy tale made for Deculein, in the fairy language she had learned from Deculein.
……A fairy tale.
He asked back briefly.
……Yes.
A story written in proper grammar. Tutor Deculein quietly nodded and scanned the sentences with his eyes. As if savoring them.
……How is it?
Sylvia hurriedly demanded his impression. At that, Deculein formed a very faint smile.
……I haven’t read it yet.
……Ah. Yes.
Sylvia waited. Fidgeting with her fingers, she anticipated his words. Her tension swelled with every passing second, and she focused her gaze on his lips.
Then, at last.
……You wrote it well.
Deculein’s praise.
The smile blooming across her own face.
And then…….
“……Ah.”
Sylvia opened her eyes.
Today, again, she had dreamed of the past.
It was a memory she missed so terribly.
It was a scene that clawed at her heart.
“…….”
She slowly raised herself up. Her lengthened hair hung down, nearly reaching her waist.
Suddenly, she looked at the calendar.
Year 8 of the Voice Calendar.
Since her first meeting with Deculein…… no.
Too many years had passed “without” Deculein.
—Knock, knock.
A knock sounded. Sylvia turned toward it.
The door opened first.
“……Sylvia.”
Calling her name in a low voice was Idnik.
Before Sylvia knew it, she had clenched her teeth. Her expression hardened sharply.
“Idnik. Why are you here?”
“Ciel called me. She said she was worried about you. The same goes for this island. It has been winter for a full year, Sylvia.”
“…….”
Sylvia said nothing. She did not even meet Idnik’s eyes.
She merely asked the crucial question.
“Did you find Gerek?”
Sylvia knew that Gerek was killing Deculein. She had chased him with 「Wind」 before, and she had even brought along a “ghost.”
However, Gerek’s super-senses far surpassed Sylvia’s 「Wind」.
Idnik shook her head.
“We couldn’t find him.”
“Then why are you here?”
Sylvia resented Idnik. She resented her for not stopping Gerek beforehand. She resented all of Voice.
“……Sylvia.”
Idnik’s voice sank seriously. Sylvia shook her head as if she did not even want to listen.
“Get out.”
“Deculein, you see.”
“Get out.”
“He is not someone you should miss like that.”
“I told you to get out!”
To Sylvia, who was struggling not to listen, Idnik held out a paper with magic drawn on it. She roughly seized Sylvia’s two hands as they tried to push her away and forced it before her eyes.
“Look. This is the magic circle Deculein drew on this island.”
After watching Sylvia break down and suffer for three years, Idnik had realized how Deculein intended to kill Sylvia.
A method that could be understood as a mage, but never accepted as a human being.
“You made a wager with each other, didn’t you? The one who completed their magic first would withdraw without regrets.”
At this rate, Sylvia would surely die.
No magic or blades would even be necessary.
“Look at it yourself. This magic circle.”
Deculein had given Sylvia the emotion called love. That “emotion,” more certain than anything else, would kill Sylvia.
“Deculein’s purpose from the very beginning was to kill you.”
And the magical power flooding from Sylvia’s dead body would activate Deculein’s magic circle.
“This is Deculein’s magic circle that I studied. It took even me three years to fully understand…….”
Sylvia looked at it. She blankly shook her head.
“This magic circle activates when you die, and it submerges this entire island. He intends to gather everything of Voice into one place and erase it completely. Residents or whatever, he doesn’t care who is living and breathing here.”
“……No.”
“It is not no! Look properly. If anything, Gerek is the one stopping him. Because Gerek has a past in which his entire village was submerged.”
Gerek had a past in which his entire village had been submerged by Yukline.
Gerek did not want to repeat that history.
That was why he was killing Deculein countless times.
So that even if Sylvia died, at least the magic circle would not be completed.
“…….”
Sylvia’s face was impassive. Only her two eyes swept over Deculein’s magic circle. Her tightly closed lips trembled.
Idnik released Sylvia’s wrist, which she had been gripping fiercely.
Sylvia was a clever child. So she would clearly understand what the purpose of this magic circle was, and what its necessary condition was.
“……Hey, Idnik.”
Just then, another voice called Idnik.
Two people were looking in from outside Sylvia’s door.
Al Los and Jukaken.
“Is that true?”
The two asked that again with expressionless faces.
Meeting their eyes, Idnik nodded.
“It is true.”
* * *
……Three months later.
Trudge, trudge── Crunch, crunch──
Footsteps sounded outside the guild room. Al Los, who had been sitting at the desk studying, glanced toward the door, and soon the door opened.
“You’re back, Jukaken.”
“Yeah.”
It was Jukaken. Having gone out to search for Gerek again today, he hung his coat on the rack and immediately hurried over to the fireplace.
Al Los asked,
“Gerek?”
“Didn’t find him. Obviously. It’s nothing but snow everywhere, so…… Are you still clinging to that theory?”
“Yeah.”
Al Los pushed up the glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
“I’m finding out for myself whether what Idnik said is true.”
Deculein’s magic theory. Al Los was diligently studying what remained of it in this guild room.
Of course, if it was something that had taken Idnik three years, it would be difficult, but it was better than doing nothing.
“What are you going to learn by studying it?”
“I’m not an octopus-brain like you.”
Hmph— Jukaken snorted and leaned back in his chair.
“But, Al Los. Even if it’s true, isn’t it the right method? Rather than Voice spreading across the entire continent and the whole continent being destroyed, it’s better for only us to die.”
“…….”
At those words, Al Los turned to Jukaken with rather surprised eyes.
What’s gotten into him?
“Are you really Six-Snake Head Jukaken?”
“I am.”
“Then why are you saying crap like that?”
“……What are you talking about? I told you. I believe in myself.”
Jukaken took out a sweet potato he had put in the fireplace. Al Los smacked her lips for no reason.
I put that in there to eat, that f***er.
“Rather than living in Voice and forgetting myself, I’d rather die as an unsung hero who saved the continent.”
“……Think about dying later. More importantly, where were Deculein’s traces today?”
Al Los unfolded the map and handed him a pen. Jukaken pointed with his finger.
“Here.”
“Hmm. Today, again, it’s in a slightly strange place……?”
Just then, all at once.
Clatter──!
Like sparks bursting, like a match being struck, a certain thought flared up in Al Los’s mind.
“…….”
Rustle, rustle…… The sound of snow piling up on the guild room ceiling.
Whoooosh…… The cold draft seeping through the gaps in the wall.
Within it, Al Los kept her mouth shut.
Jukaken ate the sweet potato.
“You want some too?”
Jukaken put a piece of sweet potato into Al Los’s mouth, and Al Los chewed it unconsciously as she continued her thought.
“……It’s different.”
At last, the single sentence Al Los uttered.
She placed the map over Deculein’s magic circle. More precisely, she overlapped it with the “tracking map” that marked the places where Deculein had died.
“It’s different…….”
Then, she compared the two locations.
Here, there was something Idnik had missed……
No, there was “something” Idnik could not know.
“……Come on~ What are you going to learn by studying this?”
Ignoring Jukaken’s dim-witted jab, Al Los focused.
With an attitude more solemn than when she made any doll, she weighed the relationship between this magic circle and Deculein’s deaths.
And so…….
“……I think I know.”
“Pfft. Bullshit.”
Jukaken sneered as he ate the sweet potato, but at Al Los’s utterly serious face, he cleared his throat and asked again.
“Ahem. What, what do you think you know?”
Al Los.
She felt she knew.
No, she was certain.
“The next place Deculein will die.”
Answering thus, she gathered the map and the magic circle together, tucked them into her chest, and sprang to her feet.
Bang──!
She opened the door and rushed out.