The corridor of the old mansion. Epherene clung to Deculein’s back. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and her arms wrapped around his waist.
In the darkness, all sorts of voices could be heard.
─────.
Words like murmurs, yet incomprehensible, like a chant of sutras. A ghostly hand brushing past her throat.
Epherene trembled all over, but Deculein remained composed. He was not afraid in the slightest.
Step— step—
“When, when are we getting there? I-I feel like my heart’s going to burst.”
Even the sound of his footsteps was frightening now. Epherene asked, stammering.
Tap—.
Just then, Deculein stopped.
Had they arrived? she wondered, but another voice drifted in.
“Professor.”
It was the voice of Knight Julie. Startled, Epherene opened her eyes.
“The sun has set. Are you all right?”
“I am fine. What are you doing here?”
“I am on patrol.”
Julie, holding a torch in one hand. However, whether she was the real Julie or a ghost imitating her, there was no way to know.
“Since the sun set so abruptly, I thought there would be many people who could not return to their rooms.”
“…….”
At that, Deculein pointed behind him with the tip of his chin.
“Did you see the wall poster?”
“…….”
Julie said nothing. That must mean she had.
“I saw your father’s name there as well. I think I understand why Her Majesty did not summon Zeit. He would have flown into a rage and tried to tear down the old mansion. It is fortunate that you are calm.”
“……Please. Do not speak of my house and my family.”
Julie bowed politely. Deculein handed Epherene’s wrist over to Julie.
“You take her.”
“Huh, what?”
“Yes.”
Julie took over without another word. Held in the knight’s arms, Epherene blinked and looked at Deculein.
“Professor, where are you going?”
“There is a soul I must search for.”
Julie asked back, her face rigid.
“A soul, you say?”
“Yes. Souls who died in the Imperial Palace, or souls whose grudges against the Imperial Palace are particularly fierce, remain as ghosts and cling to this old mansion. Beings who could not accept their own deaths, who still had words left for the living, who died yet could not die.”
Deculein handed Julie a book. It was the book he had received from Sophien.
“If I must add, Veron is not here. Rockfell is the same. They were vermin too weak to remain as ghosts.”
“…….”
At that moment, Julie clenched her teeth. Epherene looked between the two of them.
“Go.”
“I leave my disciple to you.”
I leave my disciple to you. Those words pierced Epherene’s heart. For a moment, it nearly took her breath away.
Julie nodded.
“Yes.”
“Ah, I want to go with you too, Professor—”
“Come with me.”
Julie dragged Epherene away by force, and Deculein turned back the way he had come. His back was soon swallowed by the darkness.
“……Disciple.”
Epherene murmured softly in Julie’s arms. Before she knew it, her fear had vanished, and for some reason, both her cheeks were burning.
……It felt like her heart was pounding.
* * *
I arrived somewhere within the old mansion.
I do not know where this somewhere is. However, guided by the sixth sense of 「Iron Man」, toward the place where the soul I sought existed, I walked and walked until I reached “somewhere.”
“……So this is where you were.”
A place where the chandelier swayed and blood flowed across the floor. At the center of it, a woman sat at a tea table, sipping tea. As though she had been waiting for me, she had left one seat empty.
“Your Majesty the Empress.”
“…….”
The Empress.
The woman who was publicly said to have been murdered by Rohakan lifted her eyes and looked at me. Blood still gushed from her throat, and thick death seeped beneath my feet.
“Sit, Professor Deculein.”
For some reason, she invited me to sit as though I were familiar to her, and I nodded as I approached.
“It has been a long time.”
Have we ever met? The Empress’s greeting was puzzling, but I sat down without a word.
“Did Sophie tell you to find me?”
“…….”
“Did she not?”
I quietly looked at her. She laughed lowly.
“……Sophie.”
As if recalling Sophien, her face turned faintly wistful for a moment, and she murmured in a small voice.
“The monster I gave birth to.”
Crack—!
In an instant, the Empress’s neck bent at an unreal angle as she stared at me. Tears of blood flowed from her bulging, bloodshot eyes.
“That monster killed me. Not Rohakan, but that child killed me…… killed her own mother.”
“…….”
“That child is a monster.”
The Empress called the child she had given birth to a monster.
Without saying anything, without showing any reaction, I listened to her words.
“Professor Deculein. Why do you think I, who died long ago, continue to live here? Because I feel wronged? Or because I hate?”
She shook her head.
“No. It is because of Sophie. Sophie must die. That child is a calamity that will destroy this world. She must not be allowed to leave this place.”
“……Is that so?”
“It is not a lie. You must believe me too.”
I quietly looked at the Empress.
“Whenever I saw that child, for some reason I felt something artificial, something contrived. Is it not too strange? She is too perfect.”
A perfect exterior. Features and golden proportions as though carved by hand.
Sword and magic, administration and scholarship, soldier and sovereign—a talent capable of reaching the pinnacle of every field in the mortal world.
A supremely flawless human being, born with the blood of the Imperial Family.
“Can such a perfect child truly be called human?”
The Empress handed me a teacup. Drip, drip— with elegant etiquette, she poured black tea.
But it was blood. The metallic stench spread, raw and fishy.
“No? Absolutely not. How could such a child be called human?”
A question and answer to herself. The Empress continued, speaking as if chewing and swallowing each word.
“If there is a human being far too perfect. If there is a human being truly complete, lacking nothing.”
Thud—!
At that moment, the door through which I had entered closed. The blood in the teacup surged upward with a gulp.
“We call such a being ‘God.’”
God.
The existence the Altar was searching for.
“Is that so?”
I gave a small smile. The Empress looked at me and asked.
“Do you believe me?”
“No. I neither disbelieve nor believe. I merely consider it Your Majesty the Empress’s claim.”
For someone said to be too perfect, the current Sophien has far too many shortcomings.
Therefore, I can neither believe the Empress’s words nor disbelieve them.
“Then. Will you still serve Sophie? Even if the world is destroyed.”
The Empress gritted her teeth. She muttered, shedding tears of blood.
“I am on humanity’s side. If you do not believe me, the world will be destroyed!”
“……I see. Thanks to you, I have become certain of one thing.”
I shook my head.
“You are not the soul Her Majesty seeks.”
“…….”
Roooooar──!
A thunderous sound like an explosion. The windows shattered, and a rough torrent of blood surged in like waves.
“Then who is Sophie searching for? If not the mother she killed, then who?”
The Empress’s trembling question, filled with anger.
I answered briefly.
“A soul who shared her memories.”
* * *
A cold, sunken night, with the darkness outside the window pressing in like fear. Julie’s guest room.
Epherene sat on the edge of the bed.
“Please rest comfortably.”
Julie, on the other hand, prepared to go out again. Epherene asked, looking a little tense.
“You’re going out?”
“Yes. Others may be wandering around. I have a map, so as a knight, I cannot simply hide.”
To Julie, who was about to leave equipped with a map and torch as though they were weapons, Epherene tossed out a remark.
“I heard.”
“…….”
Julie’s legs froze.
“This special petition. I heard Knight Julie was the one who made it.”
At that, Julie silently looked back at Epherene.
“I know too. That it’s impossible to talk to the Professor. Even if you try to have a conversation with him, if he doesn’t want to say something, he absolutely won’t. He hides everything. But…….”
Epherene let out a sigh for a moment.
“Professor still loves Knight Julie.”
Silence. An awkward stillness floated between them.
Epherene avoided her gaze for no reason, swinging her legs. Julie murmured in a low voice.
“Perhaps it is because of that love that things have come to this.”
Love.
Because of that love, Julie had become someone who would not live long, and because of that love, Veron and Rockfell had died.
“……I will be going now.”
“Is it true?”
Julie was about to leave the room, but Epherene stopped her one last time. Julie stood still, gripping the doorknob.
“Did the Professor really kill Knight Julie’s subordinates?”
“…….”
Julie spoke like a sigh.
“Yes. He killed my subordinates. I requested the petition in order to know the reason.”
Then she stepped out of the room. As if she no longer wished to speak.
“……Phew.”
Letting out a deep sigh, Epherene flopped down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. Then she took out the card from inside her clothes.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
[Julie von Deya Freyden].
The name of the person she had to protect.
At that moment, a mana stone slipped from her pocket with a tap.
Sylvia’s gift.
Epherene stared at it for a while, then slowly sat up.
“……It’s not exactly polite.”
Putting herself in the other person’s shoes, if someone opened a gift meant to be delivered to her first?
She thought she would be incredibly angry.
“And it isn’t the right time yet either.”
The mana stone Sylvia had told her to give Julie “when Deculein is in danger and she remains still.”
“……Wait. Isn’t he in danger right now?”
If the special petition went wrong, he would be dead on the spot.
“Grrrrrr…….”
Epherene wavered between morality and etiquette, and in the end.
“It can’t be helped.”
Having reached that conclusion,
she infused mana into the mana stone.
Fsssss……
A blue image rose. An incident from quite some time ago, one Sylvia had observed with her own eyes and stored in the mana stone.
It began to be reflected in Epherene’s retinas as well.
* * *
The next day at noon, the plaza of the old mansion.
Sophien, seated upon the throne, looked at the list written on the wall poster and gave a faint laugh.
“There are quite a few observers.”
Countless signatures of the dead written on the wall poster. The retainers nodded with rather frightened faces.
“Very well. In any case, it does not matter. It is now noon, so I shall begin the Emperor’s hearing.”
Sophien said so and rested her chin on her hand. Several retainers handed something to her.
“Listen. The target of the crime specified by this special petition is…….”
She closed her mouth for a moment and swept her gaze over the great hall. Louina, Adrienne, Ihelm, Maho, and the others waited for the Emperor’s words with deeply tense faces.
However, the person she was actually looking for was nowhere to be seen.
“Deculein von Grahan Yukline.”
In an instant, a commotion arose in the plaza. Everyone murmured loudly and looked around, but Deculein was not there.
He was nowhere to be seen in this great hall.
“Is Deculein not here? He clearly signed the list of observers.”
Sophien also seemed uncommonly flustered. After all, for anything to happen, Deculein had to be here first.
“……Perhaps he gave up and fled.”
This was Gawain speaking. At that, Sophien’s brow narrowed sharply.
“Fled. That man?”
“Yes. The evidence we will present is so firm that—”
“Shut your mouth.”
“…….”
Sophien unfurled with a rustle the evidence they had presented.
“In any case, even without Deculein, the Emperor’s special hearing shall proceed. There will merely be no one to refute it.”
Hmph. The Emperor snorted and pointed at Isaac with the tip of her chin.
“Speak. Why did you believe that Deculein committed such a crime?”
Sophien said so, and just as Isaac and Julie were stepping forward into the plaza with calm faces,
at that very moment.
Baaang───!
The great doors of the plaza burst open violently.
“Your Majesty! This is terrible!”
A knight, drenched in blood, forced his way in.
“Hurry, you must leave this place— Guh!”
A blade pierced his chest, and behind him, a swarm of suspicious figures wearing robes rushed in.
The Altar.
“…….”
Sophien stared at them without a word. The knights, including Julie, quickly drew their swords and began fighting, and the dark clouds that had gathered once again covered the sun outside the window.
The old mansion was dyed in darkness.
“Damn bastards.”
Sophien watched the swordfight in the plaza with a smirk.
Clang—! Clang——! Sword met sword, and magic was of little use here.
If destructive magic exploded on a large scale, everyone would die.
“Really. Their timing is—”
“Your Majesty.”
At that moment, a person appeared from within the darkness of the plaza. A man who dared climb all the way up to the throne and call the Emperor.
Sophien turned toward him, her brow furrowing.
“Deculein?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so late? The hearing has yet to—”
“It has been a long time, Your Majesty.”
“……A long time?”
Sophien tilted her head in puzzlement, but soon recalled it.
A certain uncertain “request” she had made of Deculein.
“……Please follow me. This place is dangerous.”
He took the Emperor by the arm and helped her stand, evacuating her from this chaos while explaining “his existence.”
“It has been over a hundred years.”
“…….”
At those words,
Sophien’s face went blank for a moment.
“I am the Professor in the mirror.”