Time on the Floating Island froze.
Even the tiniest currents of mana, even the motes of dust drifting through the air, even the expressions of the mages whose eyes were wide with shock—all of them lost time. They were fixed in a single “instant.”
Epherene had made it so.
“……”
Click— click—.
She walked through the middle of it all and, with one hand, gathered up the materials the Floating Island’s mages had researched about Deculein and the lighthouse.
“……It won’t be long now, but.”
As she read through them, as she murmured under her breath, whoosh— she burned them.
“I don’t think that’s the end.”
That great cause was the final end the Professor desired—probably his own death. The final scene of a villain who vanished while taking everything upon himself.
But Epherene could not accept that ending.
She did not want to accept it.
“……I’ll make it so that something as trivial as that isn’t the end.”
Epherene knew that day. The day when her future self, having grown more than she had now, would meet her younger self and Deculein.
Though that memory was faint and blurry, as if submerged underwater, her own sorrowful face from that time still remained like an afterimage.
“Because if you aren’t here, Professor, I won’t be happy either.”
To become her whole self, she had to be honest with her own desires as well.
Therefore, Epherene wanted it.
A life together with Deculein.
More precisely, that “time”……
* * *
Bzzzt— bzzzzzt— bzzzzzzzt———
A sheet of paper printed out from a magical machine that looked like a fax.
“……?”
Lia, who had been lying asleep on the office sofa, opened her eyes first, and Ganesha yawned after her.
Gawain picked up the telegram.
“……Everyone, look at this.”
His face had stiffened gravely.
“It’s urgent news.”
“Urgent?”
Lia sat up. Gawain looked at her and let out a sigh.
“It says the entire Floating Island has stopped.”
“……The entire thing? Let me see.”
Lia hurriedly looked at the urgent report as well.
[Urgent. Floating Island halted for unknown reasons.]
—Floating Island operations suspended. Both exterior and interior are presumed to have suffered a magical attack. Communications cut off; entry from outside impossible.
(First report)
“It seems something has happened on the Floating Island…… Could this be Deculein’s doing too?”
“……Hmm.”
Lia fell silent, rubbing her chin.
This was an event that had never been on any quest line. A tremendous incident.
If it was the work of a mage, then stopping the Floating Island—which had never once stopped in hundreds of years—in a single move was such a grave matter that even being immediately hailed as an archmage would not be excessive.
“No.”
Therefore, it was not Deculein.
At the very least, he was not an archmage on this level.
“It’s probably someone else.”
“Someone else, you say……”
At Gawain’s question, Ganesha’s twin tails fluttered.
“You mean Epherene~?”
Knock, knock—
Just then, a knock sounded.
“Who……?”
Before Lia could even ask who it was, the door creaked— open.
Two suspicious figures in robes suddenly appeared…… no, two mages.
The moment Lia saw their faces, her eyes went round.
“……Chief Professor Ruina, and Ihelm?”
“Why don’t I get honorifics?”
Ihelm grumbled as he looked around inside.
“So this is Masal. The place that’s supposed to kill Deculein.”
Muttering that, he gave a faint laugh.
“It’s shabby. Well, I suppose all the flashy sorts would want to side with Deculein.”
“What happened?”
Ignoring Ihelm, Lia asked Ruina.
Ruina gave a bitter smile.
“I barely escaped death. I was imprisoned in Deculein’s underground prison…… and Sir Delric saved me.”
“Sir Delric?”
“Yes.”
Ruina shrugged as she hung her robe on a coat rack.
“It’s a long story. I almost became Deculein’s magic crystal core. Anyway…… what’s that?”
“Ah, this is urgent news.”
“Urgent news?”
“Yes.”
Lia handed it to Ruina.
“They say the Floating Island has stopped.”
“……Stopped? The Floating Island?”
“Yes.”
Ruina’s expression grew serious as she read the urgent report.
Bzzzt— bzzzzzt— bzzzzzzzt———
In the meantime, the fax-like magical machine spat out another sheet of paper.
Lia approached it without thinking and looked at it.
[Temporarily Saved Document]
─In the event that the existing Deculein·lighthouse documents being prepared on the Floating Island are lost, I have arranged a special function so that copies will be delivered to Masal, the direct department. Please continue the research.
“……What is this?”
Lia’s eyes went wide. Ruina and Ihelm turned to look at her.
“Why? What is it?”
“A document came from the Floating Island. It says it’s a temporarily saved document? It looks like the Floating Island had prepared in advance for this kind of thing too.”
“……A temporarily saved document? May I see it as well?”
Ruina asked cautiously. Lia answered at once.
After all, even a glance showed that the document was full of all kinds of formulas and magic arrays, so even if I read it, I wouldn’t understand a thing.
“Of course. Aren’t you joining our team?”
Our team—in other words, Masal.
A department directly under the Emperor, created to assassinate Deculein.
“……Yes.”
Ruina nodded with a slightly uneasy expression. Lia beamed and handed over the document, and in that instant, as if she had begun deciphering it, Ruina’s face turned solemn. Ihelm beside her also peeked over her shoulder.
Like that, how much time passed?
“……Only half of it is here. With just this, we can’t know anything. It can’t be deciphered, and it can’t be analyzed.”
Ruina murmured as though defeated.
“Then……”
“No choice, then. We’ll have to continue the research ourselves. Don’t you agree, Ihelm?”
Tch. Ihelm clicked his tongue. Ruina smiled faintly and turned back to Lia.
“But with just the two of us, we don’t have enough time or manpower. Are there only two mages on this team?”
“……Yes. For now.”
“Then…… may I write a few letters?”
“Letters?”
At Lia’s question, Ruina looked rather proud.
“Yes. I have quite a few disciples who follow me. They’ll help with this research.”
……And.
The very next day.
Just as she had said, Ruina gathered her disciples. Ihelm also recruited trustworthy mages from the Imperial Palace. The Red Garnets also contributed several genius mages who were outstanding in theory.
The total number was nearly two hundred.
The cramped Masal office was instantly filled with mages, and a barrier was laid down to conceal that fact.
“……This really is something.”
Watching the scene, Lia murmured.
This many mages had latched on solely to analyze a formula invented by a single man—Deculein.
—A wall…… I can feel a wall.
—I’m sorry, Professor. I don’t understand even a hair’s breadth of it.
—……Is this really the magic we know?
And yet they could not find a single clue.
No, they had not even managed a proper beginning.
Most of the mages only sensed the gap in even the smallest part of Deculein’s theory, heaving sighs as they fell into despair.
—Meow.
In the midst of that, a cat landed on Lia’s shoulder.
Emperor Sophien.
—Lia.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
—I shall close the Imperial Palace.
“……Yes? Cl-close it, Your Majesty?”
—Because I need time to think.
“But……”
The closing of the Imperial Palace. Lia recalled the quest line, but there had been no such event.
It was probably the Emperor’s arbitrary decision.
—That period will not take more than ten days.
However, the words that followed were sorrowful.
—You must prepare.
Sophien spoke in a low voice.
—Prepare the most certain justification with which I can kill that man whom I loved for the first time, and will love for the last……
The tone that blurred for a moment, that voice as if damp with tears, spoke for the emotion she was feeling.
—The most certain justification for why I must kill him……
* * *
The Imperial Capital, the Yukline mansion.
I was looking up at tonight’s sky.
——!
Suddenly, a roar resounded. Streaks of mana were engraved across the dark firmament. Light was born, the born light spread, and the spreading light died.
A momentary birth and extinction.
Thunder and lightning.
Rain cutting through the space between them.
Rain that held darkness.
“I don’t think I’ll last even a full month.”
Yuli said.
She was speaking of her own body, but I placed my hand over my heart.
“About the same, then.”
A smile I did not understand appeared on my face. With that face, I turned to Yuli.
Yuli’s fingertips had already stiffened blue, and yet her entire face was filled with a smile.
Just like mine now.
I called to Yuli.
“Yuli.”
Yuli answered.
“Yes.”
I said.
“I could not protect you.”
Yuli answered.
“Please do not concern yourself. The path of protecting you, Professor, is the path by which I am protected.”
“……Is that so.”
I held out my hand to her. Yuli took it as well.
It was cold.
The chill that rose from mere fingers reached my heart.
A doll on the verge of breaking.
No, a doll already broken.
Yuli, who was merely enduring by freezing her body with her own cold, freezing it, and freezing it again.
“……It is sorrowful.”
As I said that, I took her into my arms.
“Yes. I feel the same.”
Yuli placed her hand on my back. With both arms, she caressed me and shared her chill.
Patter, patter……
The sound of rain from the world outside seeped in.
“It is not even the rainy season, yet it rains often.”
Yuli spoke from within my embrace. I laughed softly and released her. I looked again at the rain beyond the window.
“It means a god is coming.”
“……A god.”
Yuli repeated. She looked at me and pouted sullenly.
“The god who has made you suffer this much?”
“……Yes.”
“I want to kill that god.”
At her adorable complaint, I smiled.
“Impossible. It seems that god has decided upon my ending.”
Deculein’s end.
Perhaps, for the sake of that ending, the god made me into Deculein.
This meeting, this pain, this sadness, this parting, this happiness.
Perhaps I was a “prepared item” arranged solely for this moment.
“However, do not worry.”
I placed my hand on Yuli’s cheek. I gently stroked that chill.
“I will not lose, not even to a god.”
“……Yes. I know.”
“But for that, I need your help as well.”
“I know that too.”
Yuli smiled brightly and buried her face in my chest.
Even her smallest gestures like this came to me as boundless joy. They gave me a tremor I could hardly bear.
Deculein’s final happiness.
A woman like a gift, given along the road this life would take.
“……Yes. Those people are unnecessarily clever, so they may realize it soon.”
Even now, Ruina and Ihelm were analyzing my lighthouse.
Before “that day” arrived, they would understand my intent.
And so, they might try to stop me.
“You must stop those who try to stop me.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Yuli nodded resolutely.
“I will stop them for you.”
—Breaking news.
The radio crackled— as it sounded.
Yuli and I looked at it.
—At dawn today, Her Majesty Sophien locked every gate of the Imperial Palace.
It was an unexpected, sudden action.
* * *
Sophien closed the gates of the Imperial Palace.
Alone, she needed time to think.
“……It hurts.”
Lying on the bed in the empty palace, she murmured, letting out a hollow laugh at her own weak and pathetic state.
Until now, she had thought herself a person of iron.
Because she had already endured so much pain and suffering, she had believed nothing beyond it could torment her.
“……It truly hurts.”
But she had been wrong.
Deculein, that bastard, seemed to think of it so easily.
That made him even more infuriating, even more detestable.
And yet merely thinking of the not-so-distant future, merely imagining driving her sword into his heart, was painful.
It was sorrowful beyond measure.
At times, she could not breathe; at times, her body would not move.
No matter that she was the Emperor who shouldered everything, there were still things this difficult to endure.
There were certainly things one did not even want to endure.
“Your Majesty……”
Ahan’s worried voice. Sophien, still lying on the bed, lifted only her eyes and gazed out the window.
Rain was falling.
On every garden of the Imperial Palace, on the winter garden, the spring garden, the autumn garden, and the summer garden, rain was falling.
This was the first time.
Were the tears of her heart falling here?
“That man seems to think of it lightly.”
Sophien spoke.
“He seems to think I can kill him easily.”
She swept a hand across her eyes.
“No.”
Tears stained her fingers. More than that, Sophien’s heart ached.
“It is not so.”
Her voice wavered, and breath mixed with sobs flowed out.
“He is the person I love.”
Love.
That emotion, which she had experienced for the first time in her life, hurt so much.
It hurt so much, but she did not want to give it up.
Because it felt good as much as it hurt.
Because even the pain somehow felt like growing pains proving that she was alive.
“How could I kill him?”
Sophien’s anguish had only ever been that.
Whether she could truly kill Deculein.
Whether she could bear a life without him.
“If I kill him, I will not be able to live like a human being.”
Sophien blankly shook her head.
She could not do that.
An emotion she had already come to know once, Deculein whom she had already loved once.
That was hard for her to let go.
No, she could never let it go.
“Rather than that, I would die for him……”
“Your Majesty.”
Ahan cut off the Emperor’s words. Sophien lowered her gaze askew and looked at her.
As if receiving a report, Ahan was pressing the crystal orb at her ear.
“……What is it?”
Sophien asked. Ahan answered with a troubled expression.
“They say Deculein has come.”
“……Send him back. This time, I truly will not deal with him.”
That man who, in the Land of Extinction, expected her to kill him.
That damned worm of a bastard who forced his own death upon someone who loved him.
The worst man under heaven.
“Yes. However……”
Ahan tilted her head for a moment, as if doubting what she had heard, then continued.
“……They say he is at the main gate now. Until Your Majesty gives him some kind of word, he will not leave……”
“……”
When Sophien frowned, Ahan projected the crystal orb connected to the main gate.
Inside the orb, Deculein was indeed standing before the main gate.
Without any magical assistance, already covered in rain, wind, and mud, as though he knew Sophien’s current anguish, as though he had come to change her heart.
“Truly……”
Looking at him, Sophien bit her lip. Red blood flowed from the split flesh and seeped into her white teeth.
“That man has no sense of propriety.”
Even as she muttered that, Sophien despised herself.
She resented beyond measure the heart that pounded merely from seeing Deculein.
“Ha.”
All that escaped her was a hollow laugh.