#12. The Past
……That day, five years ago.
When the greatest star in this world was setting.
Dekulrein died.
With no room for denial, no way to turn back, and with absolute certainty.
Sofien watched that final moment.
Hwooooo—
At the edge of a winter mountain.
From the snow line where the freezing northern wind whipped through her entire body, she beheld the scene within Rohakan’s hut, where a warm campfire blazed……with eyesight surpassing that of mortals.
—Brother.
Yeriel, calling out to Dekulrein.
Dekulrein, smiling as he looked at her.
Their final conversation, Sofien captured with her own two eyes.
—Yeriel.
Dekulrein called out to Yeriel as she approached him. He quietly reached out and comforted the grieving child.
—……Why were you hiding?
Yeriel asked. Her voice tried not to cry, yet wept all the same.
—I was not hiding.
Dekulrein answered.
Just then, Elli stepped up beside them.
Elli looked at Dekulrein and gave a slight bow.
A small, modest greeting. Meeting a gaze thicker than a hundred words, Dekulrein gave a light nod.
With that, their greeting was finished.
He spoke to Yeriel once more.
—I was waiting.
Waiting.
The emotion contained in that word was deeply tender. So soft and warm that Sofien rested her chin upon her hands and smiled.
Truly, it was the way one treated their own flesh and blood.
Even though Yeriel shared not a single drop of blood with her.
—……You were doing well.
Warmth permeated Dekulrein’s tone.
With every syllable, every resonance, that sunlight sparkled gently.
—Doing……well?
At Dekulrein’s praise, Yeriel choked up.
Yet from her face and expression, from the droplets clinging heavily to her large eyes, it was impossible to tell whether she was happy or sad.
—Were you……watching?
Yeriel gripped his hand tightly. Tears pooled and fell over their overlapping hands.
—I……was I……doing well?
Yeriel wanted his answer.
So childlike, so unlike the woman who had raised Yucrain to become a great house of the empire.
—Yes, Yeriel.
Dekulrein said.
—You are doing well. Still now, and forever onward.
He said she was doing well.
Truly, that she was doing well.
—So there is no need to grieve. I do not worry, either.
Dekulrein smiled. He gently rose and embraced Yeriel.
—Because you are my sister.
From that moment, loud and noisy weeping erupted.
Unable to hold herself together as if the world were collapsing, Yeriel’s wailing heart filled the hut.
“…….”
Sofien watched them and thought for a moment.
What must Yeriel’s state be right now?
Her throat would be choked with tears, her reason evaporated, rendering any judgment impossible.
She could only hope Yeriel did not faint.
—……Yes. I am your sister.
……However, Yeriel came to her senses far sooner than Sofien had expected. Biting her lip firmly, she wiped her tears with her sleeve.
And then buried her face in Dekulrein’s chest.
—I’m sorry……for everything until now.
Indeed, Yeriel was a formidable person. A family head with as much resolve and will as Dekulrein himself.
—Thank you so much. And…….
That was why she did not wish to waste the moment of death on mere sorrow, did not wish to leave behind any regret at the end, suppressing her surging emotions with all her might…….
—I love you.
She conveyed her true feelings.
The words she had so desperately wanted to say, which she had never once been able to say before, at least now.
—I am truly glad……that you are my brother.
In that instant, a small arc formed in Dekulrein’s eyes.
—……Yes. Yeriel.
But his smile lasted only a moment.
His flesh, its heart already stopped, had already reached its limit by then; it had merely been postponing its end, waiting for Yeriel to arrive.
—……Yes. Brother.
Accepting his death, which had come for him long ago, Dekulrein slowly closed his eyes.
—Rest easy now.
And so, Yeriel accepted his death.
#13. The Present
“……I had no desire to do so.”
Returning to the present, Sofien looked at Efrin, her face twisting.
“What is it you had no desire to do?”
Efrin asked, as if she truly did not know.
“I had no desire to accept his death.”
Sofien said.
Efrin tilted her head.
“If you do not wish to accept it, is there truly a way?”
Chirp, chirp—
From somewhere, the sound of birds chirping echoed peacefully.
This place was an ordinary fishing spot.
Deep in the mountains where people were scarce and nature thus preserved, the two conversed.
“Are you not a mage? Even if there is no way, making one is your specialty.”
“Regression is impossible.”
Efrin raised her eyebrows.
“Even if it were somehow possible, we cannot bring chaos to an already established timeline.”
Efrin had vows. She had resolve.
If she could meet Dekulrein, she could sacrifice ‘everything she had,’ but that applied solely to ‘herself.’
For her own goal, she could not forcibly sacrifice what was not hers.
That was the tenet Efrin—and Dekulrein—had firmly upheld.
“Hmph. Worry not. I shall be the one to make the sacrifice.”
“……?”
Efrin, gripping her fishing rod, looked at Sofien. Sofien gazed at the sea and spoke.
“Temporal Particlization.”
“……What?”
「Temporal Particlization」.
It was the theory Dekulrein had imparted to Efrin in Lockralen five years ago—a miracle achieved together by master and disciple.
“They say it is the magic you learned in Lockralen.”
Vrrrr—
The fishing rod trembled. Ripples spread across the water where the bait sat.
“And?”
“With it, it can be done.”
“What……”
“You must remember as well. Not long after Dekulrein died, a meteor fell in the north.”
A meteor.
Efrin thought for a moment and then nodded.
“The day Your Majesty and I traveled together to the future…….”
“Yes.”
In the past, Sofien and Efrin had journeyed together to the future.
There, Efrin had received a ‘wand’ from Dekulrein.
The final gift left to her by Dekulrein, whose life had already ended.
“I possess a fragment of that meteor.”
“…….”
Efrin’s eyes trembled like ice. She looked at Sofien with a tense face.
“And.”
Snap.
Sofien snapped her fingers.
Then, a presence stirred from somewhere. Efrin turned to look, her expression shifting from absurdity to a faint smile.
“Hello. Long time no see.”
The same flat voice as ever. But the woman smiling faintly as she looked at her was the only person the Archmage Efrin called ‘friend.’
Silvia.
“It’s been a while, Archmage Efrin.”
Next, the child who treated her as an archmage was now the continent’s greatest adventurer, no longer a child.
“Ria, Silvia. Why are you both here?”
But her joy was fleeting.
Efrin quickly adopted a rational demeanor and asked.
“Who knows?”
Ria smiled brightly. For some reason, her face, attitude, and posture were brimming with confidence.
“…….”
Efrin rose without a word. Sublime mana surged around her.
While this unexpected meeting was joyous in its suddenness, as a great pillar of the continent’s magical world, an archmage entrusted with the protection of principles and providence, she had a duty to eliminate anything that might pose a serious threat to the continent’s safety.
“What is going on?”
Efrin asked in a low, sunken voice.
An oppressive magical pressure that would suffocate an ordinary person instantly.
Even amid it, Ria grinned.
“I thought you would be pleased.”
“……If you are thinking of interfering with time—”
“There is a better way than that.
Ria of the Red Garnet Adventurers. Having seized the title of ‘The Continent’s Greatest Adventurer’ in just five years, she was now nearly as tall as Efrin.
“Just suppose.”
Meeting her at eye level, Ria said.
“What would you do if Professor actually might not be dead? No, if we could make it so?”
With the most serious expression, she uttered words lacking all logic and sense.
#14. Rohakan’s Hut
……Nothing is impossible.
It is something mages often say.
The principles of the world are not a simple dichotomy of ‘possible’ and ‘impossible,’ but rather the ‘potential’ that exists between them. Thus, the impossible is merely that which failed to realize its potential, and the possible is merely that which finally proved its potential.
Therefore, a true mage does not belittle thought.
No matter how impossible something may seem, they bless the journey of that potential. They gladly grind their souls into it.
“So do I.”
Silvia said.
Declaring that she, too, was that kind of ‘true mage,’ thumping her chest proudly.
“…….”
On the other hand, Efrin was silent.
She was currently in Rohakan’s hut, mulling over the words Ria had explained.
“I still find it hard to understand. Deceiving the world.”
——Deceiving the world.
That was the crux of Ria’s proposal: ‘Dekulrein might not actually be dead.’
“It’s possible. Not impossible.”
“…….”
“Most importantly, this is not defying providence. We are not resurrecting the dead, nor are we trying to blindly turn back time and regress.”
At Silvia’s words, Efrin nodded as well.
For now, the content of this absurd plan was simple.
First.
Use Temporal Particlization to manifest a “Passage” and return to the past. To the era when the eternal winter froze the entire continent, if only for a brief moment.
Accomplishing this first step alone would require tremendous effort, magic, catalysts, mediums, and sacrifice—but assuming it succeeds.
Next, the second.
Retrieve Dekulrein, who is in hibernation for ten thousand years in that past. But hide him somewhere so he is not detected.
“Did you invent that magic?”
Efrin asked Silvia. Silvia answered calmly.
Hiding Dekulrein had been Silvia’s role, and she had already succeeded.
“I made it as similar to the ‘World’s Exterior’ as possible.”
The motif was the “World’s Exterior.”
The form of that ‘tool’ which Silvia proudly showed was…….
“It’s a canvas?”
“Yes.”
A canvas.
A space to contain Dekulrein, created by pouring in hundreds of millions of Elne and Marik magic stones. Storing him inside it…… The phrasing felt somewhat strange, but preserving him in it would allow them to elude the eyes of the world.
“……Then. What next?”
“There are many paintings in the Lighthouse Gallery. Hang it in one of those spots, return, and then…….”
There was no need to even mention the third and final step.
‘Simply meet the Professor.’
That was all.
“……Absurd.”
Efrin scoffed. Silvia nodded with a similar expression.
“It is.”
Efrin, an archmage, and Silvia, who was practically treated as one.
A plan that made no sense even to the two mages.
“It’s possible. I am certain of it.”
It was the adventurer ‘Ria’ who held more conviction than anyone in the possibility of Dekulrein’s return.
“I was with the Professor at his last moment.”
Ria spoke. She turned her chair around and leaned her chest against its back.
“I was……with him at that last moment.”
Dekulrein’s last moment.
Simultaneously, Gim Ujin’s last moment.
He who was both Dekulrein and Gim Ujin, someone who had come to this world just as she had—though she had come to know him far too late.
“The Professor then was…….”
Different.
His form, his voice, his face—all were subtly different from the Dekulrein before hibernation.
“Anyway.”
Of course, his death was the truth, an unchanging fact.
“So we bring the Professor from hibernation, spend time with him, and before he passes away, send him back to his original time.”
“Bu—”
The moment Efrin tried to point something out.
“Until then, the progress of ‘Comprehension’ will halt as well. Deceiving the world means severing the connection with those things—whether they be authorities, talents, or what-have-you—for a time. While we deceive the world.”
Ria immediately cut off that concern.
“So, the Professor will not become far, far too clever.”
“……You know?”
Epherene looked quite surprised, and Lia gave a small smile.
“Yes. Oh, and don’t expect the Professor to live for a very, very long time.”
Deculein had already pushed himself far too hard.
He had driven everything he had—his soul and his body—to their limits, breaking himself beyond repair, so even if they deceived the world, there was no telling how much longer his remaining life would be.
It might be only a year, or perhaps thirty.
“Also, the Professor we save must one day return to his own time and meet his death. Just as he did here in this cabin five years ago.”
However, that final moment absolutely had to take place here.
Deculein had to return to this “cabin from five years ago” and wait for his death, and for Yeriel.
“Only then will the world be deceived, and we’ll also have to save you, Miss Epherene, from Lokralen.”
The 385 years in Lokralen.
Those years were not something Epherene could endure alone, nor should she have to, and in the first place, they were something she had “overcome together with Deculein.” No matter what Deculein might be like afterward, Deculein would certainly return to this time.
“Of course, this interference will probably cause some small errors. But… you know, don’t you?”
Lia pointed at Epherene and gave her a wink.
“What is meant to happen will surely happen.”
#15. Worry
Late night in the North.
Rohakan’s cabin.
After Deculein’s death, in the place Epherene had inherited according to Rohakan’s will, Epherene was studying. She was immersed in the miracle that would open a “Passage” leading to the past.
“……Haa.”
The difficulty made her sigh without realizing it. Even if she was an archmage who governed time, the gap between the past and the present had now grown far too vast.
Fortunately, the “meteorite fragment” that would serve as the catalyst for the miracle was shining brightly on her desk right now, but…
Even if things proceeded according to Lia’s “optimism,” the problem was still enormous.
If she opened another passage through time, there was a chance that another confusion—in other words, a tangling of time—would occur.
That problem would grow exponentially from the moment the passage opened until the moment it closed.
If even the smallest calculation was wrong, if by any chance the magic failed, then the destruction of the world that Professor Deculein had barely managed to stop…
Tap—
Someone’s hand settled on her shoulder as she worried fiercely.
“……It seems you have a concern.”
The voice that asked her that was Sophien, Emperor of the Empire.
Epherene looked up at her and gave a bitter smile.
“Yes. I do have a concern, but it’s all right. It isn’t a big problem.”
In truth, that problem was not a big problem.
If such a situation occurred, Epherene actually knew how to deal with it.
“It does not seem to be a small problem… At any rate, do not worry. Whatever it is, I shall be here.”
“……Hehe.”
Epherene stretched with a noticeably brighter expression. Then she asked Sophien,
“By the way, how have you been all this time?”
“What do you mean?”
Sophien answered as she sat down in the chair opposite her.
“I mean the world without the Professor. Quite a lot of time has already passed, hasn’t it? I heard it’s been five years.”
“……Yes. It was five years.”
Sophien’s tone as she answered was indifferent. She was an emperor who had no interest in anything and was always bored.
“Meaninglessness within meaning… That phrase was exactly right.”
She rested her chin on her hand and looked at Epherene. She was admiring the emotions that had seeped into every part of Epherene’s face.
“The world is truly mysterious. All things in the world are meaningless to me, and yet……”
Suddenly, the Emperor closed her eyes as if trying to recall someone’s face.
She smiled faintly at the hazy image of him.
A meaningless imagining that became meaning simply by being imagined like this, simply by being drawn in the air.
“If this world did not exist, I would not have been able to meet the man I love most.”
Sophien had already realized it.
That it was Deculein who turned her meaninglessness into meaning, and that it was also Deculein who turned her meaning into meaninglessness.
“Thus, as his sovereign, I shall save him.”
“…….”
“Certain rewards and certain punishments. To those who have rendered merit, a fitting reward; to those who have committed sin, punishment without fail.”
Sophien looked at Epherene’s desk.
Research on the great magic that would open the “Passage.” The papers recording it were neatly laid out.
“Therefore, I shall grant a reward to Deculein, who saved this continent.”
Sophien picked up a pencil. Then, as she corrected certain parts of the formulas Epherene had been worrying over all this time, she said,
“It makes no sense for the world he saved to be one he cannot live in.”
“……Ah?!”
Epherene’s eyes widened as she looked at the revised passages.
“For that purpose, I can sacrifice as much as necessary. If the man I love can live on this continent.”
Sophien laughed softly and looked at Epherene.
“Make preparations at once. I cannot endure waiting for long.”
At that instant, Epherene also sprang to her feet. Sophien’s correction just now had made her heart pound. For the first time in a long while, she felt her mind tighten.
“Your Majesty!”
An insight that was even more precise than that of an archmage, piercing through the essence of magic and reason.
“Haha. Now you finally call me Emperor again.”
Sophien spoke with a snake-like smile.
“Now hurry, let us bring that insolent professor back. Let us go tie the final knot……”