Chapter 173

Incomprehensible

In a rural village not far from the Imperial Capital stood a farming community under the protection of House Rosnova.

Since it lay deep within Imperial territory rather than along the frontier, it was ordinarily the very picture of peace.

Boom!

That was why it was exceedingly rare to see the manor of that venerable knightly family half-destroyed.

The explosion had originated in the reception room.

Within the now wide-open chamber, a middle-aged man knelt with his forehead pressed against the floor.

Every part of him was lowered toward the ground except for his two raised hands.

They were stretched toward a young girl as he begged for mercy.

"P-Please... I beg you, spare my life."

The middle-aged man pleaded pitifully.

"Tell me something."

The girl responsible for demolishing half the building showed no sign of letting go of her anger.

"What was the last thing I said to you?"

The man's throat seemed to close up, leaving only strained breaths escaping through his nose.

"If you don't answer, I'll take your head off."

"Y-You told me to stay out of sight and live as though I were dead."

"I told you to live as though you were dead. Yes. What do you think that means? It means keeping your head down so low that no one can even hear you breathe. Did it not sound that way to you?"

"It did."

"And yet you happily ran to Alexander and informed him that I was a mage?"

A blue light flickered in Erdes's eyes.

From Erembalt's perspective, he had been left with no choice.

It was true that Alexander's faction had pressured him, but Alexander himself was not what frightened him.

Valdemar stood behind the prince.

If Valdemar became involved, not only the future careers of Erembalt's two sons but the very survival of House Rosnova would be at stake.

Erembalt had received an offer he could not refuse.

"I never intended to disrespect the President of the Magic Association."

"Go fuck yourself. You stuck your head out because you saw a chance to screw me over. Do you think I'm blind? You think you're the first bastard who's tried something like that?"

Her hand moved as though she might unleash magic at any moment.

Murdering a noble was a serious crime, but Erdes had already personally executed many nobles.

Sweat poured down Erembalt's face.

"I fully understand that this incident has greatly displeased you. The fault is entirely mine. But please grant me one more chance. I have prepared something that may ease your anger."

Erdes withdrew the hand in which she had been gathering mana and rested her chin upon it.

"Let's see it, then."

There was not the slightest hint of anticipation in her voice.

She merely thought she could kill him after seeing whatever worthless trinket he intended to offer.

Seizing the opportunity, Erembalt hurriedly ordered a servant to bring the item.

"This is it."

What Erembalt presented was a wrapping cloth.

"What is this supposed to be?"

"It is connected to Anna, Ferda's mother—the woman you have been searching for."

"What, a cloth she used for her monthly cycle?"

An object being merely connected to Anna was useless unless it carried a meaningful history.

If a loose association were enough, he could simply have brought her a fork Anna had once used.

"This is the cloth in which Ferda was wrapped when she brought him here."

"Ferda..."

It was connected to both Ferda and his mother.

It was the most ideal medium Erdes could have hoped for.

"I searched every corner of the manor to find it. I also kept it prepared so that I could give it to you whenever you came."

"Hmm..."

The mana in Erdes's eyes faded.

This would allow her to resume an investigation that had made no progress for years.

Her anger naturally subsided.

Erdes decided to show him mercy.

"Very well. I forgive you."

"Th-Thank—"

"Choose."

"Pardon?"

"You or your two sons. Choose one."

She raised one finger on her left hand and two on her right.

"Would you rather have one of your arms completely destroyed, or have both your sons' arms half-destroyed?"

His own suffering or that of his family.

Erembalt did not need long to decide.

"...My arm, please."

He chose his sons' futures.

As though the answer were entirely expected, Erdes said,

"Naturally. That's the choice any father should make."

Crack-crack-crack!

"Urrrgh...!"

Erembalt's arm bent and twisted into a zigzag shape, as though several new joints had suddenly appeared along it.

The pain was beyond description.

Erdes turned around and left without another word.

"Hngh..."

Erembalt watched her disappear into the distance as tears streamed down his face.

They were not caused solely by the agony coursing through his arm.

Mixed within them was relief that he had somehow managed to preserve his family.

After leaving the Rosnova estate, Erdes immediately began preparing a magic circle.

The object had been stored inside the manor, so it was bound to carry traces of powerful energy from somewhere nearby.

"Marun's Eye."

Known as the Eye of the God of Knowledge, it was among the highest-ranking search spells.

Erdes tossed the wrapping cloth into the magic circle, and mana soon enveloped it.

The spell traced every interwoven fiber and searched the information embedded within each individual particle.

Guided by the will and obsession of the Archmage Erdes, it sought out precisely what she desired.

What she wanted was a location connected to the object.

As her longing intertwined with the information contained within it, the mana drew a path.

Erdes followed the signpost.

It led her to the rear gate of the Rosnova estate.

This must have been where Anna and Erembalt first met.

"Then..."

Erdes summoned her magic staff.

It was time to begin the true investigation.

The magic she prepared next existed on an entirely different level from Marun's Eye.

The flow of mana alone shook the ground and seemed capable of overturning the heavens.

Ordinarily, five Sixth-Circle mages working together for an entire week would barely have been able to cast a spell of this magnitude.

Yet the magic circle under Erdes's hands was completed in only thirty minutes.

At last, she intoned the spell's name.

"Nostalgia of Schola."

A tremendous wave spread out, causing the surrounding space to ripple like liquid.

The world around her lost its color and became a realm of gray.

This spell did more than merely trace the past.

It used a medium as a doorway to recreate the state of the past itself.

Even if someone's face had been wrapped in layers of thick cloth, one need only remove the covering within the recreated scene.

The past itself became tangible.

In other words, the spell transcended time.

Within the gray space, the wrapping cloth that served as the medium fluttered into the air as though carried by the wind.

It then folded itself around a fixed shape, as though wrapping something.

A moment later, a woman appeared holding the bundled cloth in her arms.

She had blond hair and blue eyes.

There was no mistaking her.

She was Ferda's biological mother, Anna Rosnova.

Creak—

Soon, someone opened the rear gate and stepped outside.

It was a younger, much thinner Erembalt Rosnova.

"Excuse me, my lord."

Anna greeted him first.

"What is it? If the servants summoned me in such a hurry, I assume the matter is urgent."

"It is. My name is Anna, and I have come here under orders."

"Whose orders?"

"The orders of the Sierra Order."

The woman displayed the emblem hanging from her neck.

Erembalt frowned.

"Sierra... Forgive me, but I am a citizen of the Empire. Those who belong to the Empire follow the Order of Alte."

"Then will you harm me?"

"If you refuse to leave, I will have no choice but to act according to the law. Still, I am not cruel enough to hurt a woman I have only just met. You have an infant with you as well. I will provide you with food and clothing, so leave quietly."

"You are a generous man. Unfortunately, I cannot do that."

"What?"

"Because from this day onward, I am to become your wife."

"What nonsense is that? Why should I take you in?"

"Regrettably, you have no choice in the matter, my dear husband."

"'Husband'? How dare some Sierra wretch appear in the middle of the night and—"

Erembalt, who had been shouting angrily, suddenly clutched his head in agony.

The woman calmly placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What's wrong? Are you all right?”

“Huh? Ah... It’s nothing.”

Erembalt stared at her.

The wariness in his eyes faded, replaced by the ease of someone looking at an old acquaintance.

“Ugh...”

“By the way, why are you standing outside at this hour, my wife?”

The woman smiled and answered as though nothing unusual had happened.

“I wanted to take a walk in the night breeze.”

“What if our child catches a cold? Hurry inside.”

“Yes.”

The woman strode confidently through the gate.

Then the scene stopped.

More precisely, Erdes was the one who had frozen it.

Watching what had just happened, she muttered,

“What the hell was that?”

She doubted her own eyes.

Carefully twisting her wrist, she rewound the flow of time.

She replayed the moment the stranger became Erembalt’s wife again and again.

Usually, even if she failed to understand something at first, rewinding it three times was enough to reveal the outline of what had happened.

After all, Erdes was the greatest archmage on the Cerdes Continent.

Yet she still saw nothing.

There was no trace of sorcery or magic, nor even the slightest gesture suggesting that anything had been cast.

I was certain Anna was a demon...

Erdes believed Ferda to be the child of a demon.

If so, Anna had to be either a demon herself or one of their followers.

But there was no evidence of demon worship.

There was no trace of demonic power either.

All she had done was state that things would happen that way.

I have no choice but to investigate this woman more deeply...

The moment Erdes tried to touch Anna—

A chill ran down her spine.

Acting on instinct, she twisted her wrist to rewind time.

But nothing moved.

Time remained frozen.

So did her wrist.

Erdes was supposed to be the one controlling this space.

Instead, she was gradually becoming bound by it.

“Damn it!”

Erdes immediately cast an emergency defensive spell around herself.

Yet even with the protective magic in place, she could not stop the sensation of something swallowing her whole.

Just as Erembalt had changed—

Erdes felt as though the same thing was now happening to her.

“Oh?”

Within the frozen space, the woman’s voice rang out clearly.

Impossible...!

Erdes shifted her eyes toward Anna.

Anna stood there holding the infant.

Her gaze should unquestionably have been fixed on Erembalt.

There was no possible reason for her to be making eye contact with Erdes.

Yet Anna deliberately moved her lips and smiled at her.

“It seems we have an unexpected, uninvited guest.”

Erdes understood.

Control had passed into the hands of the woman who was supposed to be merely a part of this recreated space.

Anna moved freely and approached her.

“Are you the one who hates our Ferda so much?”

Erdes cursed herself for underestimating Anna.

The being before her was neither an ordinary woman nor a demon.

She was something transcendent that should not have been capable of existing on the Cerdes Continent.

“There was something I had wanted to tell you. Since you have come all this way, make sure you carve these words deeply into your ears.”

Anna leaned close and whispered something into Erdes’s ear.

At that moment, Erdes felt her consciousness being dragged somewhere.

The gray world shattered and vanished like a thin pane of glass.

Anna disappeared with it.

Color returned, and Erdes found herself back in reality.

“Haa... Haa...!”

Cold sweat poured down Erdes’s body as she struggled to catch her breath.

How had she returned?

She had been unable to move even a finger, much less use magic.

No matter how she thought about it, there was no possibility that she had escaped through her own power.

Had Anna released her?

But that did not feel right either.

Then who had saved her?

“To think there exists someone capable of troubling the greatest archmage on the continent to this extent. How astonishing.”

The voice sounded mature, yet it belonged to a young girl.

Erdes knew that strange mismatch all too well.

Only then did she notice the hand resting against her back.

“Get your hand off me!”

Erdes violently slapped it away and spun around.

Her staff pointed at a girl with a build similar to her own.

She was the mother of all witches.

The Big Sister.

Lucy Philiase.

“How ungrateful. I pull you from the water, yet instead of thanking me, you try to slap me.”

Lucy spoke leisurely as she puffed on her pipe.

“What kind of bullshit are you spouting?! When did you ever save me?!”

“You were on the verge of mana exhaustion. You had become trapped inside the manifested space and were moments away from being reduced to a cripple. Was it not I who rescued you?”

At Lucy’s words, Erdes finally became aware of her condition.

Only a dangerously small amount of mana remained inside her body.

The reason it was now slowly replenishing had to be Lucy Philiase’s mana.

“Your vessel is needlessly enormous, so this amount will not be enough. Allow me to give you more mana.”

“Get lost! Don’t touch me!”

Erdes backed away as Lucy reached toward her again.

She placed a finger against one of the formulas engraved on her staff.

The formula shattered, releasing the vast amount of mana stored within it directly into her body.

“So you had prepared such a measure.”

Lucy murmured with relief.

Erdes glared at her as though she wanted to kill her.

Lucy merely smiled faintly.

“Will you refuse to thank me even if it kills you?”

“You should have just let me die.”

“Unfortunately, I could not. I must keep the oath I made to myself.”

“Save that concern for your filthy witches. I’m not one of you disgusting Red Circle creatures!”

Despite the blatant insult, Lucy showed no sign of taking offense.

Erdes drew a finger through the air.

A teleportation circle formed, and she threw herself into it.

Lucy continued staring at the place where Erdes had disappeared.

She was accustomed to such hostility and was not surprised.

“You foolish child.”

Lucy simply felt sorry for her.

“Even if you hate and curse me... I cannot turn my back on you.”

Her words reached no one and dispersed as fleetingly as gray smoke.

***

The office of the President of the Cerdes Magic Association.

Blue, the president’s secretary, was handling the work Erdes had abandoned as usual.

Why am I the one who has to take all the abuse...?

Blue lamented his circumstances.

Those people would never have dared utter a word in front of Erdes.

But Blue was different.

He had become the target of every complaint and protest that should have been directed at the association president.

The truly amazing thing was that his hair follicles were somehow still alive.

I’m not letting her get away with it this time!

Blue stamped approval seals while sharpening his resolve.

The instant that delinquent mage returned, he would scream his lungs out at her.

Just then, the gate opened, bringing back the runaway menace he had been waiting for so desperately.

“President!”

Blue immediately unleashed all the resentment he had prepared.

“Where in the world have you been?! Didn’t you promise me that you would actually work after that hearing?”

“The workload has piled up beyond belief! At this rate, none of us will be able to manage it—”

Even after he continued berating her, Erdes gave no response.

Only then did Blue finally look at her face.

She was not listening at all.

Instead of her usual arrogant expression, she looked like someone possessed by something.

“President?”

Blue placed a hand on her shoulder.

Only then did she seem to return to her senses and turn toward him.

“Are you all right? You look terrible...”

Blue asked with genuine concern.

Erdes stared at his face for a long while before answering.

“I’m fine.”

It was only two words.

Yet Blue could tell.

Erdes looked utterly dispirited, like someone who had just been beaten senseless.

“I’m going to spend some time in the meditation room.”

“Ah, yes. Please get some rest.”

Blue was too afraid to ask what had happened and could only let her go.

Erdes entered the meditation room and forced herself into a seated position.

She needed to empty her heart and clear her mind while circulating her Blue Circle.

Yet Anna still remained inside her thoughts.

At first, Erdes wondered whether she had been affected by magic or some mysterious power.

But that was not it.

Anna remained in her mind because Erdes could not understand her.

If that woman truly was Ferda’s mother—

If she was someone who bore responsibility for her child—

Then she should never have left behind words like these:

“Do everything in your power to prevent my son from ever becoming happy.”