#4. Lokralen Guest Room.
Epherene lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
In a world where time had stopped, there was no sound. No smell, no presence, none of the things that moved—it was like a hollow universe.
Lokralen was filled with time energy, and precisely because of that, it had come to a standstill.
Tick— tock—
Epherene passed the time by counting time in her heart.
Because if she did not count it herself, she could not perceive the time flowing within her.
Tick— tock—
Tick— tock—
This kind of silence drove humans mad.
It felt as though she were swimming bare-bodied through the outer reaches of the universe, across the galaxy itself. Even though she was breathing, she felt suffocated, and at times her chest grew tight as if her throat had been seized shut.
……However.
“Professor.”
When she called out like that, a sound arose. In that space where everything had stopped, the presence of the only “someone” who could move spread distinctly.
Loneliness and silence vanished in that instant.
The stagnation pressing down on her scattered at once, her blocked breath opened brightly, and vitality welled up again.
“Why are you calling me?”
Just then, he spoke. Epherene turned to look at him and smiled brightly.
Beside the bed in the same room, a mage sat in a chair, devising a spell formula.
Her teacher, Deculein.
“I just suddenly got curious. Professor, were you staying in that cabin the whole time?”
“……It was Master’s cabin.”
Rohakan’s cabin.
The Professor, who had awakened from hibernation first after the “destruction,” had hidden himself there, in that magical cabin that could be in the desert in the morning and the North by evening.
Epherene also let out a small laugh.
“Well, if you took refuge in a place like that, no one could find you. ……Then weren’t you curious about how the continent had changed all that time?”
“The way people live is all the same.”
Deculein’s answer was indifferent. That side of him felt somewhat unfamiliar to Epherene.
Of course she was used to Deculein always being cold, but this decisive and detached tone was very different from before.
“……Oh, right. Professor. Do you know how many days have passed?”
Epherene quickly changed the subject. How much time had passed—
“108 hours, 13 minutes, 35 seconds.”
The answer came the moment she asked.
So precisely that even Epherene, who had been counting time in her own way, was startled.
“Uh…… um.”
Then, all at once, an ominous sense of unease rippled through Epherene’s mind.
So she looked at Deculein with a rather anxious expression, and in his face, still focused only on the spell formula, she sensed a certain emotion.
……Fear.
And worry.
“Professor.”
When she called him, he silently turned to look at her. His composed demeanor seemed to say that he already knew everything.
What she was about to say, what emotion she had just felt, what fear her fear was, and what worry had taken root in her—
He already knew.
“Professor, are you……”
“Epherene, I am touching upon the truth.”
Deculein spoke. Epherene flinched, her shoulders trembling. She slowly raised her head and looked into his eyes.
“……”
In that instant, her worry turned into certainty.
His eyes now, those pupils of an indescribable depth, were shining with a certain radiance. It was a wavering “aura” that transcended mana—something that seemed to stand outside the realm of humanity, making every hair on her body rise.
“As you know, I am already dying. With the enlightenment I gained upon reaching death, I came to know everything easily.”
The more Deculein spoke, the darker Epherene’s face grew, little by little. Her wide-open eyes trembled, and her tightly closed lips shook.
“The power to 「understand」 the world and its principles. That has already become an authority. This authority will evolve on its own.”
By contrast, a smile appeared at Deculein’s lips. As though he were comforting Epherene. As though telling her it was all right.
In a voice too gentle, a tone he had never shown before.
“In the end, it will devour even my ego, and on its own, it will try to perceive and grasp everything.”
He reached out his hand. The fingers that approached softly brushed over her eyelashes and caressed her cheek.
“Epherene. The giant could not remain with humans. Do you know why?”
A question too kind.
A moment so warm that it became strangely sorrowful.
“……Yes.”
Epherene nodded. Even that single syllable trembled, and it felt as though an enormous wave were swelling in her chest, but she forced it down and answered.
“A sage…… can never be happy.”
Epherene knew.
A human who knew everything could not be happy.
Wisdom could never make a human happy.
The happiest person was the most ignorant, and the most unfortunate person might well be “one who knows everything.”
“That’s right.”
At that, Deculein smiled as brightly as sunlight.
Correct—he seemed to say.
“……Then.”
Epherene needlessly pouted. Pretending nothing was wrong, pretending she was only a little annoyed, she grumbled.
“No matter how hard I try, it’s useless, then? Professor, you……”
Love between a human and a giant could not be fulfilled.
Simply because a giant could not love a human. Just as a human could not love an ant.
Then, to Deculein now, was the person called Epherene nothing more than an ant?
“No.”
Suddenly, he shook his head. As if he had known her worry in advance, as if telling her she need not worry.
“I can still look at you purely. I can look at you, my disciple, as my whole self.”
“……Your whole self.”
“Yes.”
“……”
Epherene fidgeted, then slipped her hand into the inner pocket of her robe. She toyed with the woodsteel inside.
The steel the Professor had once given her as a gift.
Holding it in her hand, she asked. Stammering, carefully.
“Whole… that whole Professor…… who, who is that? What does whole mean? That…… Ah, what am I saying.”
Even as she asked, Epherene felt a suitable amount of self-loathing for the first time in a while.
She had already grown and grown again, attaining the status of “Archmage,” and yet before Deculein, she still seemed to become that young, foolish Epherene who had only caused trouble in the Magic Tower.
“……Haha.”
Deculein laughed silently for a moment.
“It is the me you see.”
“……Pardon? The Professor I see?”
“Yes. The figure of me that you have watched is me. Only you have watched over the whole of me.”
“……?”
Epherene did not know what that meant.
But it did not feel bad. The emotion Deculein had put into those words, their resonance and nuance, were too beautiful in meaning.
“From my very beginning to my very end.”
Deculein spoke.
From the beginning, when the color of Kim Woojin had still been stronger, through the days when he had become assimilated into Deculein, to now, when neither Deculein nor Kim Woojin could be separated from the other.
“Epherene, you were with me.”
The person named Epherene was the only one who had been with him from the beginning to the end of his changing self.
“So, the me you see is my whole self.”
“……”
Of course, Epherene could not accurately know the depths of Deculein’s heart. She could only accept it vaguely.
But what did that matter?
The Professor was saying it to her himself like this.
He was telling her that she was the person who had been with him from beginning to end, that she was someone so precious.
“……Professor. Do you remember the old days?”
Epherene’s lips twitched as she held out the woodsteel in one hand, and in the other, her wand.
“They’re my most precious things.”
The woodsteel and wand in her two hands.
“This too.”
And the bracelet on one wrist.
Her father’s keepsake, already broken, but forcibly pieced back together.
“What do you think? Come here and look.”
“Hmm……”
“Yap.”
Pretending to show them to him, she wrapped both arms around Deculein’s neck when he drew close to look. She forced his face into her chest.
Fwoomp—
A soft sound rang out, but the Professor, as expected, was not flustered. He merely asked back calmly.
“……Do you not hate him?”
Did she not hate him?
How could she not hate the father who had abandoned her, the father who had used her?
“I can’t hate him. He’s still my dad.”
Epherene knew now.
That the past was entirely what she made of it.
That all “real things” were ultimately in the present.
“How could I hate the person who gave birth to me? He’s the father who gave me the world.”
Epherene looked at Deculein’s face.
Held tightly in her embrace, he wore a slightly dumbfounded expression.
Was he restraining his authority of understanding right now? Or was this an emotion even understanding could not understand?
“And thanks to my father.”
That rare, blank look of his was cute, and she smiled with too much happiness.
“I can love like this. The whole entirety of you, Professor.”
Epherene confessed with all the purity she possessed.
*
#5. One Year
One year.
The time they had promised passed swiftly.
The time energy inside Lokralen remained the same, but our time flowed far too easily.
So quickly it felt cruel.
“Even after becoming an Archmage, there’s still so much to learn.”
Unfortunately, there were not many things one could do in a space where time had stagnated.
Here, they could not grow something together, could not do something fun together…… could they?
The rest is a secret.
In any case.
In a world where there were only the two of them, in a silence where nothing moved, Epherene was happy just being together like that.
……Passionately so.
“Is that so?”
Deculein said.
Right now, the two of them were sitting side by side in the archive room beneath Lokralen, writing something.
“Yes. The story and ideas aren’t coming to me easily. I have no idea how Sylvia wrote so well.”
Epherene had begun writing three months ago. It was both a diary and a novel. A rather autobiographical story, one might say.
“Would you like to see it, Professor?”
Writing was one of the things she could do together with the Professor.
With this, they could share thoughts, and she could show the Professor the stories inside her heart.
Unlike magic, literature had no answer, after all.
“There’s a little left. I’ve written almost all of it, but……”
However, the final ending would not come easily.
That ending was one Deculein knew, one she knew, one anyone would know.
That conclusion would inevitably be a “farewell.”
She and Deculein would part in the end.
That final moment, so painfully obvious, simply would not be written.
She did not want to write it.
“Are you neglecting magic?”
Deculein, seated beside her, spoke. Epherene narrowed her eyes for no reason.
“……You told me not to become like Demakan. You said achievement and enlightenment needed limits.”
“Even if you work hard for the rest of your life, you won’t break past your limits, so it doesn’t matter.”
“What did you say?”
A year had already passed, but she still could not get used to being treated like a child.
Of course, it was not that she disliked it. Once she returned to the continent now, everyone would find her difficult to approach.
Treatment she could not receive even if she wanted it. Spoiled behavior she could not indulge in even if she wanted to.
Every single one of these moments was simply precious.
“Hmph.”
She snorted and gripped her pencil. Then she asked in a passing tone.
“Have you completed the theory?”
“Yes.”
Deculein answered immediately. As if he had been waiting, he handed her a book already bound. Press, press—he pushed its corner against her shoulder.
……She should not have asked.
“I completed it last night. You should be able to understand it if you read it.”
Epherene looked at the cover. The title was 「The Particlization of Time」.
To someone else, it might have seemed less like a magical theory and more like the title of some novel.
“……Yes. I’ll take a look.”
But if one turned just a single page, if one saw that introduction—and if that reader was an Archmage like her—they would understand.
Indeed, Deculein’s intellect had already transcended the world.
He had already become a giant, becoming a being that was no longer human.
“To annihilate particlized time as it is……”
His goal was simple enough to summarize in a single sentence, but the theory required to carry out that simplicity was radical and daring enough to twist the world’s principles and overturn providence, with calculations and adjustments so precise they sent chills down her spine.
“It’s simple.”
That made her somewhat sad, but Epherene smiled with confidence.
“Yes. Epherene, this is possible only with your talent. Only you, who can move time.”
In the end, Deculein’s theory was something that maximized Epherene’s talent. A mystery that would “particlize” and detonate the time energy of the Kaidezite that filled Lokralen through a 「vast-scale」 time spell.
From a human perspective, it was yet another “miracle.”
“Yes. I think I can do it.”
Epherene said so.
Without even having read all of his theory, without even having seen all of it.
“It might take me a little time to understand. But your theories have always been perfect, Professor.”
At that, the corner of Deculein’s mouth twitched. He must have liked my confidence.
“Then······.”
Epherene leaned her head against Deculein’s shoulder beside her. Deculein did not refuse.
“······Three months?”
She said it carefully. Would she be able to understand it in about three months?
As she did, she wrapped both arms around his waist.
“Mm······.”
But when it came down to it, she began to worry again. If she dragged out the time just because she wanted to, that would be too selfish. During that time, Deculein might be consumed by his own Authority.
“No, one month should be—”
“Let’s make it three months.”
Just as she was about to correct herself, Deculein cut her off first with three months. Epherene looked up at him in surprise.
“······Are you sure? Three months?”
At Epherene’s dazed question, he smiled.
“I can endure it. More than enough. Since you will be with me.”
At that moment, Epherene lunged at his lips.
Like a combative, aggressive rhinoceros, as if she were headbutting him······.
——Smack.
*
# 6. Three Months.
For three months, Epherene studied Deculein’s magic. She accepted it completely and understood it wholly.
Deculein’s theory had been designed specifically for Epherene, so everything about it was familiar to her, from the logic that explained it to the way the formula was bound.
“······You know.”
She could do it now. With her ability, with the qualifications of an archmage that had already come into full bloom and more, she could realize his miracle.
She could reduce the hundreds of years of Kaidezite to a mere year and three months.
But······.
“If we part like this.”
The rooftop of Lokralen. In that place overflowing with time energy, Epherene stood together with Deculein.
With a somewhat sorrowful face, unable to hide her regret, she looked up at him.
“Will we be able to see each other again?”
Not even a single second of time flowed, yet all the time that did not flow was precious.
Every single moment was already dear to her, and she did not want to let go of the Deculein now reflected in her eyes.
“I don’t think I can give up.”
For one year and three months, those unmoving times had lodged in Epherene’s heart, settled in her chest, been held in her eyes, and she felt she would never be able to forget them.
“Professor······ are you all right with dying like this?”
“······.”
Deculein quietly looked at Epherene.
Silently, he examined the face that had become an adult, and just as Epherene, suddenly embarrassed for no reason, pouted and lowered her head.
“I want to die as a human.”
He said so.
“As a human like you. As only myself,”
That was what he wanted. Not to be swallowed by Understanding, not to be swayed by something like Authority, but to fall asleep peacefully as Deculein, as Kim Woojin, just as he was.
“······.”
Because she knew that heart of his, Epherene silently teared up. She took one step toward him.
“······Professor.”
At a distance where her nose almost touched his chest, she looked up at him.
“They say time is humanity’s friend. Because it lets us forget all sorrow.”
As an archmage who had once handled time and still commanded it, Epherene did not only hate time.
“But······ even if a truly long time passes and my hair turns white, even when little remains of my life.”
She gathered both hands at her chest.
The words Deculein had spoken a year ago suddenly returned to her.
That she was the one who had been with him from his beginning to his end.
“Will I be able to forget you, Professor?”
Those words were the same for her as well.
The person who had been with her from the very beginning, from when she had been at her most foolish, until now.
The teacher who had taught her magic, resolve, life, emotions, and even who “Epherene” was, when she herself had not known.
“You, who overwhelm me just by standing here before me. You, who taught me who I am······.”
Even now, at this final moment, that person had come to Lokralen for her, and was spending this time with her. Spending what little time he had left as the whole Deculein.
“······Will I be able to forget you?”
For that reason, he was her true benefactor.
The person Epherene loved most.
“Will I really be able to forget you, Professor?”
If time passed, would she be able to forget him?
Could something as trivial as time erase him?
Epherene asked that, but Deculein gave no answer. He merely placed his hand on the crown of her head.
“You’ve grown a lot taller.”
Was he measuring her height?
At his words, Epherene nodded without realizing it.
Because she had grown quite a lot compared to long ago. Because she had changed so much from the young, clumsy girl she had been back then.
“Your thoughts have matured a great deal as well. Though I can still see foolish parts of you.”
Pfft— A smile slipped out before she knew it.
Truly, he was the only person who could call her foolish.
“Time has changed you. Made you this much of an adult.”
“······Ah.”
An adult.
Deculein might have simply tossed those words out indifferently, but to Epherene, they sounded a little different.
Because the person saying them was Deculein.
Because he was the professor who had watched her since the time when she had not been an adult, since the time when she had mistakenly thought she was one all on her own.
“You have become a mage with responsibility.”
Deculein said so. The hand resting on the crown of her head moved gently.
As though stroking her, as though proud of her, perhaps even as though finding her lovely.
Maybe thinking it was love was going too far?
······Anyway.
“You are my disciple. That fact will not change. No matter what time may pass.”
Calling her his disciple, Deculein smiled.
At that moment, something surged up from deep within her chest, and a certain fullness rose within her, but it would be a lie to say she did not feel regret.
Because she was still only his disciple.
“······Yes.”
Epherene smiled too. Sniff— But before she knew it, she had swallowed back a sniffle, and for some reason, her mouth tasted salty.
Because tears had seeped in at some point.
Because suddenly, before she could even think, tears had begun to fall.
“With this much······.”
She did not know whether she was smiling as if crying, or crying as if smiling.
Epherene nodded. Steeling herself, she thumped her own chest.
“I think I can say I was loved.”
Love.
It might not have been love as lovers, love as a man and a woman, but at the very least it was “affection.”
Would the feeling called affection not be the same for both of them?
“······Yes.”
Deculein said, as though agreeing.
Even if it was not agreement, she would take it as agreement.
“Yes. Then······ I’m ready.”
A magic circle had been realized on the rooftop of Lokralen. It was the formula Deculein had designed, constructed with Epherene’s mana.
“Shall we begin now?”
Epherene asked.
Gathering mana in her body, in order to manifest once again that absurd miracle called the “particlization of time.”
“Yes.”
Deculein smiled. Then he held out his hand. As if telling her to take it.
Epherene gladly took that hand. She gently intertwined their fingers.
“······You’ve worked hard.”
At Deculein’s words, something tingled and surged inside her. Epherene could not hold back.
“I······ ngh!”
She quickly threw herself into his arms. She hugged his waist tightly. From within that broad embrace, she looked up at him and shed tears.
“Truly······.”
As she sobbed like that, while warming up the mana that would execute the miracle······.
“······You too, Professor.”
She buried herself in Deculein’s chest.
She buried in her own heart this professor, this man called Deculein, whom she dared to proudly claim she would love forever.
*
# 7. The Imperial Palace
The Imperial Palace, the Emperor’s private chamber. Sophien was admiring a canvas and a sculpture.
One was a painting by some nameless mage, and the other was a sculpture by Yulie.
Both were so beautiful that it was impossible to say which was superior.
Even so, Sophien, in order to determine their superiority, stroked her chin and put all her effort and sincerity into her critique······.
Whoooosh—
At that moment, a rustling message sheet.
Soon after, the resonance of mana approached from far away.
Before Sophien even read the report on the message sheet, she understood the inside story of what had happened.
“Lokralen has collapsed.”
Lokralen. That famous “site of temporal interference” to which she had been paying a fair amount of attention must have collapsed.
It was a good thing.
If Lokralen had been left as it was, it too would have become another seed of destruction.
“······In that case.”
Sophien smiled.
“The time has come.”
The Emperor knew. What had happened in Lokralen.
Of course, she did not know what emotions had passed between Epherene and Deculein, nor what specific things had happened within, and that made her extremely jealous, but······.
“Ahan.”
Sophien called Ahan. Ahan, who had been pouring tea at her side, quickly bowed and answered.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Call Lia.”
At those words, Ahan looked rather surprised, but soon calmly obeyed the Emperor’s words.
“Yes, Your Majesty. What message shall I convey when calling her—”
“Tell her this.”
Sipping the black tea in her teacup, and elegantly chewing the refreshments placed beside it, Sophien wore a mischievous, deep smile.
“Tell her I think I know where Deculein is. Tell her to hurry, and that we should go meet him······.”