46. Old Story (2)
Wiiing! Wiiing!
Mixed in with the blaring sirens, the rain drizzled down in endless sheets.
Rumble…!
A bolt of thunder shook the world loudly, and Zeliel’s pale cheeks were tinged blue.
With hollow eyes, she stared blankly into empty space for a long, long time.
That place was probably—
where her father had been sitting.
The World Commercial and Industrial Summit.
A gathering where leading politicians and business leaders from every nation, including the Chairman of Starcloud, assembled to discuss the world’s economic progress.
With as many as one hundred participants, it would not be an exaggeration to say that this conference gathered the very pinnacle of the world.
And among them, Zeliel’s father, Melian, had been seated in the most honored place of all.
But now—
he was gone.
All ninety-nine remaining participants had testified with deathly pale faces.
‘Chairman Melian disappeared.’
Without the slightest warning, they said, he had simply turned to dust and vanished right before their eyes.
Swaaaaaaa—!!
Rumble!
The downpour was especially fierce.
The commercial summit, held atop the great tower, had finished its discussion and had its ceiling retracted open, and because of that, Zeliel had no choice but to stand there and take the rain with her bare body at the closest possible place to the clouds.
Three days had passed since her father’s disappearance.
A great many things had happened in those three days.
Mages from the great magic towers—those spoken of as candidates for the Great Tower—had come from all across the world to assist in the search. The police mobile search units spread outside alone already numbered in the hundreds, and even the Armored Magic Knight Corps had arrived to help with security.
There had even been the absurd spectacle of 7-Class mages having to erect barrier after barrier along the police line because more than several hundred reporters had gathered and camped outside. And alchemists’ sky satellites were still floating beneath the clouds even now, shining their light in every direction in the hope that they might somehow detect signs of Melian’s life.
To find just one single person, countless people from all over the world had poured in and thrown all their strength into the effort.
That alone proved how extraordinary her father had been.
But none of that gave Zeliel even the slightest comfort.
Like typography soaked through with rainwater, every bit of scenery around her seemed to run and bleed away.
Nothing entered her eyes.
In the end, no one had managed to find even the smallest trace of her father.
Including herself.
‘It’s because of me.’
If there had been some other reason—
if there had been some other cause for her father’s disappearance—
then at least there would have been someone she could blame.
But because this entire disaster was purely the result of her own mistake, she could not direct her resentment at anyone and instead kept slowly grinding down her own emotions.
‘What… what have I done…’
It was an evening of pouring rain.
She closed her eyes and opened them, and the sun was up.
She blinked her blurred eyes once more, and it was evening again.
How many days had passed?
Worried about her, the Starcloud medical staff came to see her where she stood unmoving in the same place, but Zeliel did not so much as cast them a single glance.
“Foolish child.”
He came about a week later, one afternoon.
It should still have been high noon, yet the sky was dark under a blanket of storm clouds.
“So you have brought matters to this pass in the end.”
One of the 9-Class mages regarded as the world’s absolute summit—
the man called a pillar of the western desert.
Hae Seongwol, Master of the Full Moon Great Tower.
He had come to see Zeliel.
Meeting his eyes with her own vacant stare, she bowed mechanically.
Hae Seongwol looked deeply displeased at the sight. He strode forward in a few long steps and slapped Zeliel hard across the face.
Smack—!!
Her cheek burned.
A tiny bit of her mind returned to her.
“When you went seeking Ancient Carmenset, did no one warn you?”
They had warned her.
The man standing before her now—the greatest mage in the world himself.
‘Carmenset will lead everything you have into ruin.’
Hae Seongwol, who had long maintained ties with Melian, had offered her the same warning again and again whenever he encountered the young Zeliel.
But she had not listened.
Because she believed she herself was always right.
“And so what has become of you now?”
She did not answer.
No—
she could not answer.
Even if she had ten mouths, she would have had nothing to say.
Zeliel slowly raised her head and parted her rain-soaked pink lips to ask him:
“What… what am I supposed to do now…?”
Clicking his tongue, he lifted his eyes to the sky.
Beyond their business relationship, Melian had also been such a pleasant man by nature that Hae Seongwol had often drunk with him as a friend.
And yet—
to think he would leave like this.
Hae Seongwol, in his own way, had also done everything he could to find him, desperately.
But he had found no path forward.
“What wish did you make to Carmenset?”
“…I asked him to grant my father immortality.”
“You were foolish, ignorant, and stupid. Your ignorance brought harm upon your father.”
He met Zeliel’s eyes directly.
Under the gaze of the great archmage—a gaze that felt as though it could pierce and kill a person by sight alone—her body stiffened like stone.
But she did not look away.
“Your wish was undoubtedly fulfilled.”
“…What?”
“What is life, to you?”
It was a question far too philosophical.
And for Zeliel, who had always lived mechanically, calculatingly, rationally, it was an especially difficult one.
“The meaning of ‘life’ differs for each individual. For some, uncovering the truth of magic is the meaning of life. For others, satisfying material desire may be the meaning of life.”
Hae Seongwol spoke.
“And yet you asked only for eternal life, with no conditions, no rules, and no limits. Every being in this world is born with a different meaning of life. How could you ask such a thing?”
Only then did Zeliel understand what he meant, and her eyes widened as her lips trembled.
“N-no way…!”
“Yes. Your father’s ‘life’ was adjusted to match Carmenset’s own values. For him, immortality likely means abandoning the flesh, becoming a spirit, and wandering the heavens eternally. Just as he himself does.”
“Ah…”
Thud.
Zeliel’s body collapsed straight downward, her knees striking the floor.
The complete destruction of the body.
That was…
no different from death.
“Even now, your father has likely lost his sense of self and wanders somewhere in Aither as a spirit. Regrettably, there is no technology that can detect ghosts. And even if his soul were found, restoring a body that has been annihilated is impossible.”
Turning his back, Hae Seongwol delivered his judgment with brutal coldness.
“…Give up on finding your father.”
The Master of the Full Moon Great Tower dissolved into mist and vanished, and Zeliel stared blankly at the place where he had stood.
“Ha… hh…”
Her chest seized so tightly it felt as though it would burst.
Something seemed ready to spill up through her throat.
Her head throbbed as though it might split apart.
What was this?
It was a sensation she had never experienced in her life.
No.
This was not sensation.
It was—
emotion.
Though Hae Seongwol had told her to give up with his mouth, he apparently mobilized all the manpower of the Full Moon Great Tower and began development on a new technique for searching spiritual bodies.
In addition, thinking there might still be a possibility that Melian had survived in some other form, he sent out elite magical search teams—
but there was still no result.
And then, after about two weeks had passed and both body and mind were beginning to wear down—
“Student. Let me read your fortune.”
…Some passing fortune-teller spoke to Zeliel.
She had been directing the search operation at the time and had no leisure for trivial banter, but the timing of the fortune-teller’s arrival was so uncanny that Zeliel had no choice but to stop.
“What the hell, ajumma? How did you even get in here? Get out right now!”
“Tsk, tsk. Young people these days.”
The search team moved to drive the fortune-teller away, but Zeliel raised a hand to stop them.
“Wait.”
“Yes? Y-yes, ma’am!”
“We’ll step back!”
This location was currently protected by a seven-level police-line barrier.
That meant ordinary people could never enter easily.
The excuse of having wandered in “by chance” could never explain this.
Zeliel had not left security so lax.
“Hohoho, shall I read your fortune?”
And more than that—
there was something strange about this fortune-teller standing before her.
She was clearly a living being, and yet, somehow…
it felt as though Zeliel were looking up at some gigantic mountain.
Not even when she faced Hae Seongwol had she felt anything like this.
Suppressing the chill crawling through her body with all her strength, she said:
“Yes. I want my fortune read.”
“What sort of fortune would you like to hear?”
Zeliel thought for a moment.
“…My fortune of reunion. Please tell me my reunion fortune.”
“Hohoho. Longing is beautiful, but it is also a painful emotion.”
Saying that, the fortune-teller looked off into the distance.
Toward somewhere unimaginably far away—
some place Zeliel’s own powers of perception could never dare to look upon.
“There is a place where you made memories with the one you long for.”
“Go there. If your fortune of reunion is good, then perhaps you may have a fortunate meeting there. Hoho.”
With that, the fortune-teller turned her bent back and shuffled away somewhere.
Zeliel rolled those words over and over in her mind for a long time.
‘The place of our memories…’
Zeliel and her father had both lived such busy lives that they had not managed to create many memories together.
And yet there was one place—
one place where they had undeniably built memories.
At the time, Zeliel thought, she had boarded the train holding her father’s hand.
‘We’re heading to Happyland!’
A worn-out sign rattled as the downpour struck it.
This was the station where the ‘Happy Line,’ a line that had run only to the amusement park, used to operate.
Now Happyland had been shut down, and no one came here anymore.
With no maintenance at all, green weeds had grown thick over the railway tracks, posters from years ago hung in torn strips, the cracked and shattered walls and the escalator long since stopped somehow made the entire place feel eerie and cold.
The place of their memories.
That day, Zeliel had taken her very first trip in life, holding her father’s hand.
A Happy Line train that had already finished service ran only for her.
Happyland, which had shut down for the night, lit itself up only for her.
Tap.
Splash.
Each time Zeliel walked, water pooled on the ground splashed beneath her feet.
Her simple black dress had long since been soaked through because she carried no umbrella, but she paid it no mind.
With every step she took through the empty station, memories of that day with her father kept surfacing one after another.
It had been nearly ten years already, yet her perfect memory had not let slip a single one of those moments.
She had walked here once with her father.
Now she walked here alone.
Swaaaah—!
When she stepped up onto the station platform, she found rain pouring through holes in the neglected roof.
As she walked, weaving between the scattered places where the storm leaked in, Zeliel suddenly sensed someone’s presence and lifted her head.
There—
was a boy.
Messy black hair.
A Stella uniform.
Holding an umbrella, scratching at his head while staring at some poster—
that side profile was unmistakably Baek Yuseol.
‘…Why?’
Why in the world was that boy here?
Reason could not explain it.
And yet, before she even realized it, Zeliel was already moving toward him.
Splash. Splash.
Her steps grew faster.
The high-heeled shoes that only got in her way had been thrown off long ago.
He was coming toward her faster and faster.
No—
that wasn’t it.
She was moving toward him faster, and faster, and faster—
“…Huh?”
Baek Yuseol hurriedly hid behind his back the poster with some ugly person drawn on it, but Zeliel had not once looked at it in the first place.
“Haa, haa…”
“W-what? What’s with you all of a sudden?”
Whether Baek Yuseol understood what was going on or not, the moment Zeliel reached him, the strength vanished from her legs and she collapsed onto the ground.
Swaaa—!!
As luck would have it, she had dropped right in the middle of the downpour, and yet she could not even rise again. Slowly, she reached out her hand.
The place that hand managed to touch was…
at most, the hem of Baek Yuseol’s trousers.
Slowly, she lifted her head and met the boy’s eyes.
It could not be a mistake.
What welled in Zeliel’s eyes was not rainwater.
It was unmistakably tears.
The disaster caused by her own mistake.
Even the great 9-Class archmage had declared it hopeless.
Even the finest search teams, who could find a single grain of salt on a sandy shore, had shaken their heads.
Everyone had said it was impossible.
She had thought there was no hope.
And yet the moment she saw him, why did hope gather in her heart?
“You, don’t tell me…”
Before Baek Yuseol, who seemed to have realized something, could say more, she finally let the tears spill and parted her lips.
“…Help me.”
It was not something someone like her had any right to say.
She had tormented him, tried to harm him,
and even tried to ruin his life.
Now that she had emotions, she understood.
She understood how vile and wicked the things she had done to him truly were.
The spike called guilt kept digging into her heart, tormenting her over and over again.
Reason told her that Baek Yuseol would never grant a request like hers.
Even putting herself in his place, who would possibly listen to the plea of garbage like her?
She was alone.
And she had realized that alone, she could do nothing.
Even so—
“Please, please… I can’t do anything anymore…”
Zeliel bowed her head before him.
“…Hey.”
The moment Baek Yuseol spoke to her,
the downpour suddenly stopped.
Swaaaaa—!
The sound of rain still covered the world,
and yet strangely enough, no more rain fell upon her head.
‘Ah…’
When she raised her head and met his eyes again,
Baek Yuseol was holding the umbrella over her.
“You’ll catch cold.”
As he said that, the boy extended his hand toward her.
Zeliel, trembling, grabbed it with both hands.
“Ah, ah…”
She understood exactly what his gesture meant.
And because of that, countless emotions swirled inside her heart.
On a day of pounding rain,
though she was certainly under an umbrella,
the raindrops running down Zeliel’s cheeks were especially warm.
They were raindrops filled with emotion.
Read only on MugenCodex
