31. Stella Knights (5)
She dreamed.
It was a dream in which everything was burning.
Within that dream world, not a single thing had escaped unharmed.
Aether World, which had built a dazzling civilization, had been destroyed by a single existence.
And even Stella Academy had not escaped it.
There, in the middle of those ruins,
Aizel stood alone.
Not a single survivor remained.
In the place where everyone had vanished, Aizel simply walked in silence through the ruined world.
There was no sorrow.
No rage.
No despair.
She raised her head.
And met eyes with something.
It was alive, yet not alive.
Could that creature, which had driven everything to death, truly be called a living thing at all?
The calamity slowly approached Aizel and opened its maw, trying to say something.
And the moment she concentrated on it—
“…Hah!”
She came to.
And the very next instant, she found herself staring into the face of a girl leaning in close before her.
It was her friend, Marilen.
“Hi there?”
With a bright crescent-moon smile in her eyes, Marilen greeted her.
“…Aaaah?!”
Thunk.
“Kyaah!”
Aizel let out a scream and shot upright from the bed, only to slam her forehead into Marilen’s.
“Ughhh…”
Marilen tumbled off the bed clutching her forehead and groaned.
“I’m not exactly ugly, you know. It’s kind of hurtful when someone gets scared just from seeing my face…”
“I-I’m sorry…”
Only then did Aizel realize that this was an infirmary room, and that she must have fainted.
“…How much time has passed?”
“Almost a whole night, I think?”
“Yeah. Just how hard were you studying to collapse from overwork?”
Besides Marilen, there were several other friends in the infirmary too, all of whom had come to visit her and were now snacking away under the excuse of checking on her.
“Overwork…?”
“Yeah. Don’t you remember? The doctor said you collapsed from overwork.”
“Geez~ It’s always the ones who already get good grades that overdo it the most. Your scores are already good, so how much harder were you planning to work?”
It was true that she had overworked herself, but not to the point of collapsing.
If anything, the reason she had fainted was…
Only now did Aizel remember why she had collapsed, and her expression slowly stiffened—but her friends had no way of knowing that.
“Oh, right, this was kind of strange too. While you were out, some Stella knights were guarding you.”
“Right. For a second it made us feel like we were nobles or something.”
“The knights…?”
“Yeah. But the moment you woke up, they left.”
“Ah…”
Aizel touched her forehead and thought for a moment. Then, with a faint smile, she said:
“Thank you for coming to visit me.”
“…Huh?”
Seeing that expression on her face, her friends went blank.
Soft sunlight filtering into the infirmary and the whispering breeze brushing past her seemed to make Aizel’s beautiful smile bloom even more, and for a moment they were all left speechless.
Then, after snapping back to themselves, they all pulled ugly faces at once.
“When a pretty girl makes a pretty face, it’s seriously unfairly pretty.”
“Don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Huh?”
“Ugh~ Forget it.”
And just like that, they went back to chatting again.
Watching them, careful not to speak too loudly in a hospital room even as they continued making a fuss, Aizel felt truly grateful.
Then, after a while, the door opened and someone entered. In an instant, the room fell silent.
“You’re awake. There is something we need to discuss, so you’ll be discharged immediately.”
Arain, General Commander of Stella’s Knights.
He had come in person.
—Read only on MugenCodex.—
As Aizel walked side by side with Arain, she could not hide how uncomfortable she felt.
Before, when they had been together in the sparsely populated Orion Magic Tower, there had not been much of a problem—but now they were walking together through the Academy district, and the amount of attention it drew was tremendous.
…
Whether she felt uncomfortable or not, Arain kept his usual stiff expression and made his way toward the First Main Tower.
The place they arrived at was none other than the principal’s office.
‘W-why are we… here?’
Knock knock!
The moment Arain knocked, the door opened automatically—
Click!
—and then closed.
“Eh…?”
By the time Aizel understood what had happened, she was already standing inside the principal’s office.
“So, you’ve come?”
Eltman Eltwin, principal of Stella Academy.
He greeted them while still in the posture of someone who had been in the middle of arranging his study.
Aizel stared blankly for a moment at the youthful smile that had still not quite shed its boyishness, then finally grasped the situation and turned pale.
‘W-what is this…?!’
The principal’s office, out of nowhere.
And she was meeting the principal himself!
Arain gave Eltman a brief bow, then stepped back.
“I shall take my leave.”
“Good. Though next time, I’d appreciate a bit more caution.”
“Understood.”
Click.
Arain truly vacated the room in an instant, and Eltman smiled pleasantly as he spoke.
“Now then, we have something to discuss, don’t we?”
“Huh? Ah…”
Understanding what he meant, Aizel nodded and sat down.
“The first thing I want to ask is this.”
“Yes…”
“Did your father perhaps tell you not to trust Arain?”
Flinch.
Aizel’s body trembled. Her father had indeed said that often.
“How did you…?”
“Well, he was the sort of person who would have said that. He especially disliked people like Arain. But you didn’t follow your father’s words, did you? Do you realize that you nearly died because of it?”
“…What?”
Eltman flicked his hand lightly through the air. Without even using a wand, magic activated, distorting the space and summoning a teacup and teapot, which began to pour tea in midair.
“A mere 3-Class mage doesn’t have nearly enough power to intrude upon the Library of Stars. You had about a 99.99% chance of dying.”
“W-what?!”
Aizel’s voice cracked, because she had had no idea it was that dangerous, and Eltman just smiled in circles.
“Well, since that didn’t happen, I suppose a miracle occurred in that 0.01%. Congratulations. Why don’t you go buy a lottery ticket? Ah, though perhaps you’ve already used up all your luck.”
“D-die…?”
A 99.99% chance of dying?
No one had told her that.
“Of course they didn’t. If Arain wanted to use you, the easiest thing to do was not emphasize the risk. Foolish little Aizel Morf would obediently access the Library of Stars, after all.”
He was right.
She was the one at fault for trusting Arain completely. She had followed his words about saving Baek Yuseol and accessed the Library of Stars without asking a single thing about the danger involved.
“But to be fair, Arain was sincere too. He really does seem to want to save Baek Yuseol. In the process, though…”
Eltman met Aizel’s eyes, her face already drained of color.
“It seems he didn’t much care what happened to your life in the process.”
“I see…”
“Ahaha, it’s fine. I gave him a good scolding, so he won’t be able to do that again, all right?”
Even so, the fact remained that she had come within a single step of death, and Aizel’s heart still pounded hard in her chest.
“This is just my personal opinion, mind you.”
Until then, Eltman had been smiling slyly.
But as the atmosphere around him suddenly turned heavy, Aizel steadied herself and listened closely.
“This was no miracle, and no coincidence. Something… some kind of fate, saved you.”
“Fate…”
“It seems the Library of Stars does not reject the descendants of the Twelve Disciples.”
Why was that?
Aizel could not understand at all, so she merely fidgeted with her fingers—but that seemed to interest Eltman greatly.
“Isn’t it fascinating? That a mere library holding knowledge chooses people. This is closer to mystery than to magic. It’s rather absurd for a mage like me, who interprets reality through magic, to say this, but there are still many unreal things in this world that I don’t understand. One of them is the Constellatio Project. Even I know absolutely nothing about the secrets hidden inside it.”
And yet—
“You caught a glimpse of part of that secret. You saw it, heard it, smelled it, felt it on your skin, and perceived it with your own mind. So? What did it feel like?”
Thud!
Eltman planted both hands on the desk and leaned toward Aizel with a face flushed with excitement.
“Was it thrilling? Exciting? Or were you terrified? Was your curiosity satisfied enough? Are you content with just that much?”
“U-um…”
When Aizel recoiled in fright and shrank back with both arms trembling, Eltman belatedly realized his mistake and pulled away.
“…Sorry. I got a little carried away.”
He calmly drank his tea.
Even so, his fingertips were trembling.
Like someone going through withdrawal.
“Anyway… you must never, ever speak to anyone outside about what happened in there.”
“Why…?”
“The knowledge in that place is, quite literally, the will of heaven.”
He said it in a matter-of-fact tone.
“To leak the mechanisms of heaven is to defy heaven’s will. Your head will burst, and you’ll die.”
Only then did Aizel realize anew just how dangerous the knowledge she had tried to peek at truly was.
“But… exceptions do exist.”
Eltman drew out his wand.
It was the first time she had ever seen the principal’s wand in person, and Aizel’s lips parted slightly.
Its name was Karbi Sikututu.
A wondrous staff that looked as though pure white branches had been intricately woven together, one of the very rare wands in all of Aether World…
specialized for freely wielding space-element magic.
Tung…!
He struck the floor with the wand, and the entire room became wrapped in a mysterious golden radiance.
“A special kind of magic has been placed over the principal’s office. If I wish it, then for a very brief time it can be isolated from the world. The price is that it consumes a considerable amount of my lifespan, but…”
Eltman licked his lips and continued:
“If I can hear what happened in the Library of Stars in exchange, that’s cheap enough. Now tell me. What happened there?”
Aizel closed her eyes for a moment, took a breath, and paused.
Then, in a trembling voice, she slowly began to speak of what she had seen there.
“The world… was burning.”
A crimson meteor shower filled the sky. A black dragon led the world to destruction, and no one could stand against it.
Only one person.
“Baek Yuseol… he was walking toward the black dragon.”
“Hmm. So in the end, that is how it turns out.”
Even after hearing that, Eltman showed no great surprise.
Almost as if he had expected it.
“It was so frightening… Even Stella Academy was burning, and I thought something truly terrible had happened…”
But.
Eltman, who had shown almost no reaction to the destruction of the world itself, reacted strangely at the words Stella Academy was destroyed.
“You just said Stella burned…?”
“Huh? Ah, yes…”
“I need a more detailed description.”
“U-um… it felt like a ruin that had been half-destroyed. At first, it was so ruined I couldn’t even tell it was Stella.”
“Really?”
Why was he reacting like that?
Was Stella more important to him than the world? In the first place, if the world were destroyed, wouldn’t Stella being destroyed be natural too?
What exactly had shocked him?
Unfortunately, Aizel’s question did not receive an answer, because he immediately moved on.
“Then tell me this: did you happen to see what destroyed Stella? And what happened to the dead?”
“Th-the buildings were all collapsed…”
“Were they destroyed by the meteor shower?”
“Ah, th-that, I’m not sure…”
“And the people? Why did they die?”
“I-I don’t know…”
“How did they die? Think carefully. There must have been wounds. Did the black dragon kill them? Or if not, perhaps some other person—”
“I said I don’t know!!”
Bang!
Clatter!
Unable to bear the torrent of questions any longer, Aizel suddenly shouted and sprang to her feet, and the teacup in Eltman’s hand fell from his grasp.
Eltman Eltwin went silent.
‘Ah.’
Only then did Aizel realize what she had done, and her face turned pale as she started to apologize—but Eltman bowed his head before she could.
“…I’m sorry. Time is short, so I questioned you too harshly. I wasn’t considerate.”
When he raised his head again, Eltman’s face was deathly pale.
So pale it seemed he might collapse at any moment.
It was not her imagination.
A thin stream of bright blood was running down from between his lips.
“…Then I’ll move on to the next question. It seems this part is not something you wish to recall.”
“S-sir, I think you’re overexerting yourself…”
“No. This much… is fine…”
Eltman forcibly gripped the teacup with trembling fingers.
Even in a state where he looked ready to collapse, he clung obsessively to something as trivial as a cup of tea, and there was enough madness in that motion that Aizel could not bring herself to stop him.
“That was probably… something that happened in the past…”
Eltman’s voice was much looser now than before.
A sign of exhaustion.
“The past…? But the world has never been destroyed.”
“Yes… But in this world, there exists a being that can handle time…”
The Twelve Divine Moons.
Silver Age November.
“Most likely… that being tampered with the worldline…”
“No way…”
If what he said was true, then the scene Aizel had seen was an event that had really occurred in the distant past.
“But the time of Silver Age November only repeats. It does not change anything… That was a thing that happened in the past—but it is also something that will happen in the future.”
“In the future… the world will be destroyed?”
“…Yes.”
It was not difficult to guess when that would happen. In the world inside the Library of Stars, Baek Yuseol, who had stood alone against the black dragon, had looked roughly ten years older than he did now.
Which gave rise to one question.
“…The spring of Silver Age November must always repeat around ‘someone.’ In other words, there is a strong chance that the one who turned time back is still alive in the present. But the problem is… we don’t know who that is. Cough!”
As Eltman gave a shallow cough, blood spilled out.
In the midst of that, Aizel recalled something all on her own.
She had not told him, but…
she had most certainly cried out to the Library of Stars, Tell me about Baek Yuseol.
And ordinarily, if one were shown someone’s past, would it not make sense to see their childhood?
Showing her events from a worldline before time was turned back was not normal at all.
‘Could it be… Baek Yuseol…?’
A thought slowly rose in Aizel’s mind.
Baek Yuseol, who had stood at the edge of the world and fought black destruction alone to the very end. If he had ultimately lost to the black dragon, failed to stop the destruction of the world, and then made the choice to turn time back…
‘No way… could it really be?’
Inside her mind, the pieces of the puzzle began clicking into place.
Why Baek Yuseol had acted the way he always had until now.
Why he was so thoughtful, why his combat sense was so extraordinary, why he possessed so much knowledge.
Even why he sometimes seemed far too seasoned for a mere teenage boy.
‘No… no, I still don’t know anything for certain…’
…But if it was true—
then when Baek Yuseol failed to stop the destruction of the world and had no choice but to turn time back, what had he been thinking in that moment…?
“Aizel…”
Eltman, his face half that of a dying man, barely managed to speak.
“For now… we still can’t know anything for sure. If we are to prepare against the world’s destruction, we must see more. Much more. But with your present strength, it isn’t enough…”
In other words, Aizel herself needed to grow stronger.
Or else—
“…Perhaps if you were to access the Library of Stars together with another descendant of the Twelve Disciples, and combine your strength… Cough!”
“P-Principal!”
At last, Eltman could no longer endure it and collapsed to the floor, and the barrier was lifted.
Bang!
“Principal!”
“Are you all right?!”
Perhaps the reaction from inside the office had been monitored, because the knights burst through the door in alarm and rushed Eltman out for emergency treatment.
Watching that scene in a daze, Aizel could do nothing at all.
Because too many truths she never wanted to know had just been forced into her mind.
